Beauty is but Skin Deep
by calistra
Summary: This is a xover with Bones from episode 2.07 The Usual Suspects. Events from lots of episodes are mentioned.
1. Chapter 1

**Characters: Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester, Temperance Brennan (Bones), Seeley Booth, others from Bones and Supernatural.**

**Summary: When I saw The Usual Suspects I just saw an opening for a cross-over. This is my badly written attempt at that scene. **

**Spoilers: 2.07 The Usual Suspects, 2.08 Crossroad Blues.**

**Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Eric Krippe's characters from Supernatural and Fox's characters from Bones. No money being made, only my debts are my own (but you're quite welcome to those).**

**No Beta, so all the mistakes are my own.**

**Part 1**

Agent Booth was looking at the remains in the coffin and wasn't quite sure what he was looking at. Dean Winchester serial killer was supposedly killed and buried in St. Louis but then he turns up at another murder scene in Baltimore months later. So now Agent Booth was looking at what had been buried waiting for his partner.

"Sorry I'm late," Dr Temperance Brennan apologized. "What have we got?" she asked looking into the coffin her nose wrinkling as she did so.

"Nice of you to get here so quickly Bones," Agent Booth replied sarcastically before he quickly filled her in on the details, as he knew them.

"Ok, so if we get the coffin and its contents and any DNA samples from the crime scenes sent to the Jeffersonian. I'll get the team to run tests," Bones replied all business like. "We could do with samples from his latest crimes to tie them together."

"Already on it Bones this will be shipped asap and we're going to go down to Baltimore to pick him up," he replied smoothly. "I thought you'd want to come."

"And why's that?" she replied with a little smirk.

"From what I've heard he'd make an interesting paper for you," Booth responded with his own smirk walking towards his car. "High school drop out, never filled in a tax return, never had a solid job, drifter, carries more weapons than any soldier and I hear he's incredibly charming."

"And what makes you think I might be interested in any of that?" she scoffed as she followed.

"You pride yourself on your ability to understand human motivations, thought he might be right up your street," Booth shrugged.

"Tell me more then," she insisted dryly.

"Or you could read his file," Booth replied passing her a file as they got into his car. "You'll love his confession for the latest set of murders," he smirked getting into the driver's seat. "They get it all set up and then he starts spouting that it wasn't him but some vengeful spirit; and the murders here were committed by a shape shifter."

"What the hell is a shape shifter?" Bones exclaimed in disbelief.

"I'm damned if I know, but that's one of many questions I've got for him when we pick him up," Booth replied as they sped out of the city.

When they arrived at the police station in Baltimore there seemed to be more frenzied activity than was usual for this time of day. They both turned to look at two officers who ran passed them, as the made their way to the front desk.

"Agent Booth and Dr Brennan here to see the prisoner Dean Winchester," he announced flashing his badge with a grin.

The officer behind the desk looked at him, "yeah well that's where they're going. Seems one of our officers got shot when he escaped. We're waiting for Detective Ballard to get here to explain what happened."

Bones and Booth exchanged glances. "Where did this escape take place?" Bones asked.

"Detective Sheridan was taking him up to St. Louis when it happened," the officer replied in a disinterested tone.

Booth was furious he'd told the Police Chief that he would be coming down to collect the prisoner. "And who authorized the move?"

"Got the paperwork right here," the officer replied.

"I'll need to see that in the Police Chief's office immediately," Booth insisted. "This was a Federal case and the prisoner should not have been moved without my authorization. Now you've lost him." Booth continued to mumble about police incompetence as they were led to the police chief's office.

After being allowed to escape by Detective Ballard the Winchester brothers made their way back to town to collect their things. Dean wasn't leaving without the Impala and they broke into the impound yard to break his baby out.

"Ah there she is," Dean sighed as he saw his pride and joy carefully parked between the wrecks. He quickly went and checked that everything was ok while Sam kept watch for any guards.

Dean opened the driver's door and slid into the seat hoping that the creak of the door wouldn't be heard. He signaled to Sam to get in as he started the engine.

As the car roared to life the guards came round the corner to be confronted with the Impala driving towards them. They just had time to leap out of the way as the car headed for the exit.

"Sorry baby," Dean sighed as they broke through the gate and headed off down the road to the sound of gunfire behind them. "Do you really think they were trying to kill us," Dean teased with a grin glancing at his brother.

"Well let's think… we broke into the impound yard… started a car… and drove out almost killing them," Sam listed with a frown. "Yeah I think there's a good chance they were trying to kill us."

"Let's make a note never to return," Dean turned to his brother with a smirk. "One attempt at killing me I can cope with… two's getting plain mean… I don't want to find out if it's third time lucky for them."

Sam laughed, "Yeah well if you'd stop pissing people off, they might keep their guns holstered."

Dean glanced sideways at his brother with an innocent expression, "when have I ever pissed anyone off?"

Sam snorted, "I heard about your 'confession'… I can't imagine that went down well."

Dean smirked, "no but I only told the truth… some people just can't handle the truth."

Booth and Bones were waiting in the police chief's office when he came in with Detective Ballard.

"I'm sorry to keep you waiting Agent Booth," he said as they shook hands and turned to Bones to do the same, "Dr Brennan. My custody sergeant told me you were here and I thought you'd want to talk to Detective Ballard as well, he continued indicting to the female detective beside him."

"That's very reassuring of you," Booth ground out looking at the female detective. "Can anyone tell me where the Winchesters are now?"

"No," the police chief replied. "They broke their car out of the impound yard just before you got here and lost our officers soon afterwards."

Booth threw his arms up in disgust walking across towards the window, "can you tell me anything that will help our investigation?"

Detective Ballard nervously said, "look, they're good boys"

Booth shot her a disbelieving look and glanced at Bones.

"I don't understand," Bones stated. "This Dean Winchester was here on a murder charge and yet you say they're good boys; that doesn't make sense."

"Neither does Dean's confession," the detective agreed. "But after everything that's happened in the last 24 hours I'm inclined to believe he was telling the truth."

Dr Brennan noticed the bruises that were still evident on the detective's wrists. "Where did you get those?" she asked indicting the bruises.

"They appeared earlier and I came to talk to Dean," she admitted letting Bones examine them. "He told me where to find his brother and that he would protect me from whatever had caused it. I didn't really believe him but was concerned about what they meant. On finding his brother I discovered what they actual do and he did indeed protect me from the killer. The killer confessed what he'd done before I killed him."

"And that was your partner," Bones suggested in disbelief.

"Yes." Eyebrows raised around the room from the people listening.

"But how did you find out he was the killer and where he was?" Booth questioned.

"Dean had said in his interview that they believed it was something to do with Ashland, thought it was a street. When I found Sam he was investigating missing girls and tying it to Ashland, I recognized one and we went to the building where she went missing and found her body. On her body was a necklace like one Pete had given me."

"So you put two and two together and decided to confront him," Booth supplied.

"Yeah only when we radioed in we heard Pete had taken Dean out supposedly to return him to St Louis. Sam suggested we get the tracker turned on and luckily we found them quickly. Pete was about to shoot Dean and I got him to confess before I had to shoot him," she finished.

"That's very convenient," Booth retorted sarcastically. "And I suppose it was while you were shooting your partner that they escaped."

"No but they got away while I was radioing it in," she replied.

Bones had been studying her throughout the conversation, "and what aren't you telling us detective?" she probed.

"I beg your pardon," the detective retorted indignantly.

"There's something you're not telling us and it's significant."

"Have you seen Dean's confession yet?"

"No not yet," Bones replied looking confused at Booth, who also looked puzzled.

"Ask me when you've seen it," she replied. Turning to her chief, "I think they need to see it."

The police chief phoned to get a copy brought to his office. "I'm sure you'd rather watch it in comfort since we can't help you any further."

Bones looked at Booth who replied. "We'll take it with us. We also want all evidence collected here sent to Dr Brennan's office for cross-checking."

"Why, I've told you they weren't involved here?" Detective Ballard asked.

"There may be something that would help our investigation," Booth insisted.

A few days later the Winchester brothers were sat in a diner. On the laptop screen Sam was reading Dean's identity details as they appear in the records of the St. Louis Police Department.

"So much for our low profile," Sam said seriously looking annoyed over the top of the laptop, as Dean picked at his own chips. "You got a warrant in St. Louis and now you're officially in the Feds' database." 

"Dude, I'm like Dillinger or something," Dean replied with a smirk picking up his drink. 

"Dean, it's not funny. It makes the job harder. We got to be more careful now," his brother complained with a frown and Dean put his drink down.

"What have they got on you?" Dean asked seriously waiting for an answer.

"I'm sure they just haven't posted it yet," Sam replied searching for information on the laptop.

"Wait, no accessory? Nothing?" Dean frowned shook his head and started to laugh.

"Shut up," his brother complained.

"You're jealous," Dean teased.

"No, I'm not!" Sam protested.

"Uh huh?" Dean replied waving his hand as he changed the subject. "Alright, what have you got on the case there, you innocent harmless young man, you?" he asked picking up his drink again and then going back to dipping his chips in ketchup and eating them.

Sam gathered the documents he found. Another case to keep them busy for a few days.

Bones and Booth return to Washington to await news of sightings of the Impala.

"So Angela, have you managed to reconstruct the face of this person in the coffin?" Bones asked as Booth and she walked into the lab.

"I tried but nothing is consistent, it seems like a collection of faces," she replied confused.

"Actually Dr Brennan there is a problem with the bones," Zack interrupted.

Bones looked at him waiting for him to continue, when it was obvious that he wouldn't she prompted, "And what would that be?"

"Oh," he stumbled. "The bones aren't really bone they're more like cartilage. I checked the skeleton and every bone seems the same. They also appear to be changing shape or have recently changed shape."

"I found that quite strange when Zack told me," Dr Goodman interrupted as he came up the steps behind Bones and Booth. "I checked and it is indeed cartilage and not bone."

Booth and Bones looked at each other confused. "That detective said something about Dean Winchester's confession mentioning some strange things; maybe we ought to check it out," Booth suggested.

"Anything else from the evidence from St Louis?" Bones asked her assembled team.

"Most of the bugs are associated with damp dark places, like sewers or basements," Hodgins replied.

"Well the guy's liar was in the sewers," Booth commented. "This does seem at odds with this Dean Winchester driving around in an Impala and staying in motels; which every other incident on his record points to."

"Nice car," Hodgins enthused.

Bones gave him a look of disgust, "what is it with men and cars?" she addressed Angela.

"It's a guy thing," Angela replied. "But that one is a smooth classic. So are we going to watch this video, he sounds like a real smooth guy."

Bones rolled her eyes.

Booth looked at them, "this video doesn't need all of you watching, just Bones."

Angela looked pleadingly at him, "oh come on, seeing him might help with some of the reconstructing an image from what we've got."

"Bones it's your team, tell them," Booth pleaded.

Bones grinned, "you know they're right; this video might give them some insight."

Booth shrugged in defeat as they went to the video room.

After dealing with the Crossroads Demon Dean was distracted; the offer had been tempting and just because he hadn't taken it up didn't mean he didn't think about it. Yeah he'd thought about it, then he thought about his promise to his dad and knew he couldn't do it, but it had left him wired.

He needed a distraction and was glad they soon found a new job in Reva, West Virginia. It wasn't much just a standard poltergeist but it might be enough to get his head off the choice he had been given.

Booth took the phone call and went to find Bones in her office.

"Hey Brennan, it seems some eagle eyed deputy has spotted the Winchester's car in Reva are you going to join the swat team to bring them in?" he asked knowing she would jump at the chance after seeing the video; there was something about Dean Winchester that seemed to interest her and it wasn't his looks.

"'Course, let me just pass this over to Angela and get Zack to get the DNA results," she replied. "So are you driving?"

"Nah there's a plane ready to take us to join the team," he replied as they went to see first Angela then Zack.

Hodgins saw them, "so if you're flying does that mean you'll drive their car back?" he grinned.

Booth smirked, "well that depends, it'd be quicker to just fly."

"Ah but it's a classic and there might be some evidence we could find."

"Which would be months old and covered in whatever else they've been doing," Bones argued.

Booth and Hodgins looked at each other then back at Bones, "if it's there we'd find it," Hodgins assured.

Bones shrugged and walked off, Booth ran after her to his car.

Sam was still complaining about they had to be careful with Dean on the Federal wanted list and how they couldn't afford to stir things up, and wouldn't they be better heading west in search of a job.

Dean ignored him and that's why they had spent the last week in Reva; four days researching, two days getting close enough to the family to gain their trust and yesterday getting rid of the son of a bitch. Both Sam and Dean had crawled back to their motel worse for wear and although Dean had tended to Sam's wounds he hadn't let his brother reciprocate deciding they were both too tired. The fact that Sam's eyes appeared glazed and his weren't mush better was the deciding factor for Dean, since his worst wound was from his right shoulder down nearly to his waist. He knew it wasn't deep but even after the shower it didn't feel right.

'Poltergist my ass,' he thought as he tumbled into bed. 'That was a demon,' he was glad they'd taken the banishing ritual with them on the off chance, something had seemed wrong on this case.

Sam had fallen asleep as soon as Dean had finish tending his wounds and said his own would wait until morning.

When Booth saw the car parked at the motel he turned to Bones, "no matter what that gets back to Washington." He then assigned two of his team to make sure it didn't leave and let down the tyres.

Assigning four officers to the rear of the building the rest of the team broke in through the front door.

tbc


	2. Chapter 2

**Characters: Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester, Temperance Brennan (Bones), Seeley Booth, others from Bones and Supernatural**

**Summary: When I saw The Usual Suspects I just saw an opening for a cross-over. **

**Spoilers: 2.07 The Usual Suspects & 2.08 Crossroad Blues in Chapter 1**

**Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Eric Krippe's characters from Supernatural and Fox's characters from Bones. No money being made, only my debts are my own (but you're quite welcome to those).**

**No Beta, so all the mistakes are my own.**

**Part 2**

Although he was feeling groggy Dean was instantly aware when he heard footsteps approaching their door. He tried to alert Sam, but the poor kid was out for the count. When the door was smashed in Dean immediately went for his knife under the pillow but was too slow to do anything.

The noise startled Sam awake. "What the fuck?" he exclaimed as he saw the dark figures entering the room with guns trained on his brother and him. Seeing the look on Dean's face he didn't move too fast just sat up.

"Dean and Sam Winchester, I presume," Booth announced with a smirk. They looked at each other but didn't say anything. "Nice to catch up with you at last, you've been giving us quite a runaround," the agent continued. Glancing at the knife in Dean's hand, "Nice weapon but I don't think you'll take us all out so why don't you drop it and we'll talk."

Dean knew that since Sam was here it would be difficult for them to get out of this, but he didn't want to get Sam killed. The knife was already slipping in his grip as he went to drop it and he realized that he must be running a temperature. The knife clattered to the floor as one of the men with Booth went to cuff Sam, effectively blocking Sam's view of his brother. Dean could feel blackness overcoming him as he passed out.

"Shit!" Booth exclaimed; he'd been hoping to talk them into leaving with him without the cuffs since Bones was convinced that whatever was in the coffin was responsible for the St Louis murders. Turning to Sam, "what's your brother on?"

Sam looked at him confused; he was already worried about Dean insisting that they rest before dealing with his wound. "On? What are you on about?"

"Is it booze or drugs that've made him passed out?" Booth replied impatiently.

In the meantime Bones had approached the comatose Dean and put her hand on his forehead. "Neither, he's running a temperature," she stated impassively.

"Damn you Dean," Sam complained trying to get to his feet and get to his brother, a member of Booth's team stopping him. Sam looked at Booth, "can you call off goons; I'm not likely to escape if Dean needs help." He felt like punching the guy but was more interested in finding out what Dean had been hiding last night.

Booth looked at Sam and Bones before telling the men to back off. As soon as that happened Sam was across the room to his brother.

"Oh god Dean, what have you done," he complained at his unconscious brother while moving him to find the injury.

It didn't take long to find the gash in Dean's back from his right shoulder to his waist. It wasn't deep but did contain dirt and demon goo, despite Dean's shower.

Bones tried to help Sam as Booth sent the rest of the team back to base; believing that he and Bones were more than a match for an injured Winchester and his caring brother. Besides he didn't want any witnesses for the bargain that he was prepared to make, hoping that the Winchesters would go to Washington without resistance.

Bones looked at Sam as he carefully removed Dean's T-shirt, "what's that stuff?"

Sam knew he had to use holy water to clean the wound immediately before using any traditional methods. "Oh, we just got in a fight, all sorts of things flying around that bar. Can you keep hold him while I get some stuff to clean it up?" Sam deflected.

"Yeah, of course," she replied getting a sample bottle out of her pocket to get some of the goo when Sam turned his back.

Booth was looking over at Dean concerned that the suspect could be dead before they found out what had really happened. "So do we need to call an ambulance?" he asked, hoping that Dean wasn't as bad as he looked.

Sam looked at him in shock; he hadn't thought about his brother being that sick. He hadn't ever thought of his superman brother ever really being hurt; so long as you didn't count that time with the rawhead or when the demon ripped him apart then the car crash. No, his brother always bounced back they didn't need a hospital; he'd clean him up and give him some antibiotics and his brother would be fine. "No… No, he'll be fine," Sam asserted forcefully turning to look at Booth. "Just need to get this clean-up and we've got an antibiotic shot; he'll be ok," he reassured himself.

"Good, cuz I need you both to come to Washington with Dr Brennan and myself," Booth affirmed, feeling unsure about whether to believe Sam or not.

"Washington," Sam reiterated as he cleaned Dean's wound. "So you're FBI? You really want Dean not me, so why should I help?" he continued nervously as he set about cleaning his brother's wound.

"Because we want to know who killed those people in St. Louis and what your brother has to do with it," Booth replied trying to look like the assured professional he was but feeling out of his depth with the sick man.

"We know he didn't kill them," Bones stated carefully helping Sam to clean and dress Dean's wounds. "But we need the help of you and your brother to prove it."

"You'd never believe us if we told you," Sam asserted pulling down his brothers boxers to give him the antibiotic shot, as Bones turned away not expecting him to ignore her presence.

"Maybe not," Booth agreed with a grin at Bones actions. "But what have you got to lose? This way you get a chance at clearing his name and keeping him out of prison. If you run, assuming you get past Bones and me, some other FBI agent picks you up or some flatfoot either you get shot or prison. We're willing to listen to your stories and maybe you'll convince us," he smirked.

Dean was groggily waking up and heard Booth's comment. "Sam you can run, I'd be lucky to stand; I don't think we've got a choice."

Booth grinned, "wise man. So if we get your stuff together we can fly to Washington this morning." He picked up Dean's knife and looked around for any other weapons that they might use against himself and Bones.

Dean shuddered and slurred, "I might have agreed to go with you; I don't remember agreeing to fly."

Booth and Bones looked at each other confused. Sam piped-up, "Dean doesn't fly. He also won't want to leave his baby here, so if you'll trust me to drive we'll use the Impala."

"That'll make Hodgins happy," Bones deadpanned.

Booth grinned, "only if I get to drive."

Bones rolled her eyes, "boys and their toys."

Sam looked at Dean who had tensed at Booth's suggestion, "it'll mean I can sit with you."

"If I'm going to end up with my head in someone's lap, I'd rather that someone was of the female persuasion!" Dean replied with a wink at Bones. "Besides you won't get your jolly green giant ass in the back."

Bones sighed and threw up her hands, "now I'm surrounded by male chauvinists."

"Don't worry Sammy's good for female bonding," Dean teased as he started to sit up with a wince. "He likes all those chick-flick hugging moments," he grinned as Sam rolled his eyes and flipped him off.

"Pity Bones here doesn't understand them then," Booth retorted.

"It's not that I don't understand," she protested. "I just can't see the point of it all."

"Me neither," Dean agreed. Turning to his brother, "how bad?"

"Shoulder to waist, deep enough to scar but not for stitches," Sam recounted and Dean shrugged. "If you showered, you left a lot of stuff behind, that's why you've got a fever."

"So the pain in my ass is the antibiotics?" Dean winced.

"Yeah and now you're awake you can have some pain killers," Sam insisted. "We were a bit short on the distilled water. I'll need to get some more to clean the wound again later," he didn't think mentioning holy water would go down well in the present company.

"Used lots on you and tried to use some on me but kept missing," Dean replied. "Not going to be easy getting more from our usual suppliers."

Bones and Booth were totally at a loss about what this coded conversation was about, but realized it had something to do with why Dean was sick.

Once in the car Sam took up shotgun with Dean behind him, Booth was driving and Bones sat as far from Dean as she could.

"Look this really isn't catching," Dean teased feeling he really should try and make conversation even if all he wanted to do was go back to sleep.

"I know," she replied giving him a condescending look. "I just don't know what else might be."

"I was only joking about lying down," he responded feeling vaguely offended.

"Yeah well this car is a health hazard," she complained, gingerly moving a food container with her foot.

"Hey don't mock the car," Dean chastised. "That's from just before the fight, haven't had chance to clean her out yet."

"What were you fighting," Booth chipped in with a grin. "A shape shifter?"

"Don't mock until you've met one," Dean replied dryly already beginning to fall asleep again and resting his head on the back of the seat, shifting forward in the seat until he was reasonably comfortable.

Sam wasn't amused at his brother's comment, "Dean, shut-up."

Booth realized it wasn't the time for pushing, Dean had taken too many pain killers and Sam was just plain suspicious. "So what kind of music you got Dean?"

"The greatest hits of the mullet rock era," Sam sneered.

"Mind if we put some on, Dean," Booth emphasized that he was talking to the older brother.

"Sure no problem. Stick the 'Highway to Hell' one in Sam," he replied falling asleep as the first bars sounded.

At the Jeffersonian Bone's team was busy looking at the results from their tests. Angela had a strange shaped reconstruction of a head; it looked more like several heads joined together the most prominent looked like the picture they had of Dean. Hodgins had the blood test results which seemed to indicate something not human.

"You know when we did that case where they said about a witch and Brennan said those things didn't exist?" Hodgins asked.

"Yeah," replied Angela.

"Do you think she could have been wrong?" he queried.

"I don't know," she replied as she looked at the head again, "but I've never seen anything like this before."

"You know the tape that Booth left from the Baltimore cops."

She nodded.

"Do you think there might be something on that to explain this?"

Angela smiled, "You mean something we didn't notice last time?" He agreed. "I think Dr Brennan left it in her desk."

They raced to Dr Brennan's office to retrieve the tape and listen to it.

"Where are you going?" Zack asked as they rushed past him.

"To watch that tape from Baltimore," Hodgins replied avoiding him.

"Dr Brennan won't be happy," Zack observed.

"True but it might help make sense of our results," Angela noted as she avoided him.

Zack changed course to follow them into Dr Brennan's office.

"It'll be in the third drawer, keys in the pencil pot," Zack informed them as they search for the tape.

Dean was still out for the count when Booth pulled into a gas station. "Do you two want to stretch your legs and grab some food, while I fill up?" he asked.

Bones looked at Dean, whose head was still relaxed on the back of the seat with his mouth slightly open, as she got out, "what about him?"

"I don't think he's going anywhere," Booth replied as he moved towards the pump and ducked his head to look at Dean.

Sam opened the back door to check on his brother. "Hey Dean," he nudged.

"Uh, what's up?" his brother slurred only half awake and hardly lifting his head.

"We're stopped for gas, do you want anything?" Sam asked.

"'s alright," his brother slurred falling asleep again.

Sam glared at Booth, "Keep an eye on him."

"Hey he's my witness, he's not going anywhere," Booth complained, insulted that this kid would think he'd let anything happen to a witness.

"You want anything?" Sam queried.

"I'll get it when I pay for the gas," Booth replied as Sam stalked off. "So Dean whatever got you wasn't a normal fight, was it?" he mused wondering what this case was really about.

Sam went to the washroom and checked that no-one was there before pulling out his phone.

He looked quickly down his contacts and dialed the number, muttering as he waited he them to pick up.

"_Havelle's, can I help you," Ellen answered._

"Hi Ellen," Sam started.

"_Sam, sweetie, where are you?"_

"We're heading for Washington," he replied brusquely.

"_Washington, what you going there for?" Ellen interrupted._

"It's not by choice," he replied. "We got jumped this morning by the FBI."

"_Where's Dean?" Ellen asked concern lacing her voice._

"We got the demon, but it caught Dean. He's in the car and I've cleaned the wound but he's kinda out of it."

"_Not like Dean to be so careless," she stated._

"We were wrecked after the fight and Dean got me cleaned up but then he insisted we sleep before doing him. I know… I should have insisted but I don't think either of us could see straight by then."

"_Ok, but that's not why you're phoning. What do you want?" _

"The FBI agent is a guy called Booth but his partner is a Dr Brennan. What can you find out about them? What're their thoughts on what we do? I need to know what we're dealing with. And get Ash to email the answers to my phone, I don't want them knowing."

"_Sure thing honey, you take care and look after that brother o' yours," she insisted replacing the receiver._

"I will," Sam muttered to himself as he put the phone away and went to get cleaned up before grabbing some food and coffee, not forgetting water and pain killers for Dean.

When Bones and Sam returned to the car Booth went to clean up and get some food before paying for the gas. Just like Sam he had a phone call he wanted to make without being overheard.

"_St Patrick's, can I help you," Father Raymond answered._

"Good morning Father, it's Seeley Booth and I hope you can help," he stated meekly.

"_What seems to be the problem son?" the Father asked surprised to hear from this member of his flock._

"I know you've done exorcisms but what do you know of other things like that?" he asked, he knew what the bible said about demons but wasn't so sure about shape shifters.

"_I have sources but why would you want to know about that? I thought you dealt with human crimes," the priest queried remembering previous encounters with this member of his flock._

"Yeah well usually I do but this latest case is just plain weird. I'm traveling back to Washington with a guy and his brother in their car… the guy had been attacked by something that doesn't sound human… now he's out of it and I don't think the hospital will be able to figure it out. So I'm sort of asking for your help," Booth shrugged feeling uncomfortable.

"_Who are these boys?" the priest asked having already been contacted by a friend of a friend._

"Dean and Sam Winchester," Booth knew the priest wouldn't break confidence but still felt uncomfortable naming them over the phone.

"_And I presume that Dean is the one hurt?"_

"How did you know?" Booth was astounded that he had guessed.

"_Dean would do anything to protect his brother, always has," the priest replied._

"How do you know about them and how much do I believe about what they say?" Booth asked still dumbstruck that the priest should know about these two fugitives.

"_We had a mutual friend until he was killed earlier this year. If you get them talking about their real work believe everything, otherwise believe nothing."_

"So what about a Shape Shifter?"

"_You mean the one Dean killed in St Louis?"_

"Yeah, is it real and how do we prove it?" Booth replied excited that there was some reputable source to confirm their stories.

"_Yes it was real but I don't know how you prove it. Do you know what attacked them?"_

"No, Sam's tight lipped and Dean is barely conscious."

"_How far from here are you?"_

"Should be in Washington in an hour."

"_I'll get some things together and see you at your place in two hours," the priest instructed replacing the phone and calling in a favor from a friend._

"Ok so now we find out what's going on," Booth pondered as he went to get food, coffee and pay for the gas.

Tbc


	3. Chapter 3

**Characters: Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester, Temperance Brennan (Bones), Seeley Booth, others from Bones and Supernatural**

**Summary: When I saw The Usual Suspects I just saw an opening for a cross-over. **

**Spoilers: Huge spoiler for 2.07 The Usual Suspects.**

**Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Eric Krippe's characters from Supernatural and Fox's characters from Bones. No money being made, only my debts are my own (but you're quite welcome to those).**

**No Beta, so all the mistakes are my own.**

**Part 3**

Booth was going to drop Bones off at the Jeffersonian on the way to his apartment but she reasonably suggested that Hodgins would want to join them for the rest of the journey. So instead they dropped her off at her apartment before continuing.

Booth drove into the underground car park and parked in the space next to his own car, leaving a note for security that it belonged to his guests.

He then went to help Sam get Dean up to his place.

"Hey Dean," Sam was trying to coax his brother from the deep sleep that he was in.

He shook him gently knowing that his brother's reaction could be reactionary to say the least. Dean bolted upright grabbing for the knife which he always kept to hand. "I'm awake," he slurred as his eyes opened not finding the knife.

Sam grinned, "well you are now." He checked his brother's eyes which still seemed glazed. "Do you think you can make it up to the apartment."

Dean looked confused, "what apartment?"

"Agent Booth said we could stay at his place until you feel better," Sam explained quietly trying to help his brother out of the car, as Dean tried to bat him away.

Booth was enjoying the interaction between the brothers but knew they needed to get Dean out of public view before anyone wondered what was going on. His superiors might have sent him to pick up the fugitive but they wouldn't be keen on him taking them home. It was only because Angela wanted to study Dean, purely for the reconstruction work; that had enabled him to persuade his bosses to not take him straight into custody.

"'s ok I can manage," Dean protested as Sam again tried to help him to his feet. Leaning on the door Dean steadied himself before looking at Booth, "so are we standing here or are you leading the way?"

Booth almost grinned at the young man's audacity but turned to Sam, "you better bring your bags up." He then turned back to Dean, "lift's over there," he stated making sure he had a good grip under Dean's right arm to stop him collapsing.

"I don't need," Dean started trying to push the older man off.

"You're in no state to know what you need," Booth interrupted adjusting his grip with a smirk at the futile struggle the boy was putting up. "Now let's get you up stairs."

"So how'd it go," Angela greeted Bones as she made her way to their work area.

"Booth has Dean and Sam Winchester in custody," Bones replied impassively not wanting to be waylaid by trivial gossip about the suspects.

"So what are they like?" Angela enthused trying to get information out of her boss with a wicked grin.

"Angela I don't believe you; they're suspects in a murder investigation," Bones scoffed with a grin as they entered the main research area.

"So is the Impala here for investigation?" Hodgins pried mischievously, itching to get a good look at the car.

"Sometimes you all amaze me," Bones exclaimed. "We're here to facilitate the FBI's investigation not talk about how hot the suspects and their car are."

"So they are hot," Angela interrupted.

"No… Er maybe… That's not the point," Bones continued flustered. "The point is the suspects are the suspects and the car would be just evidence."

"An Impala is never just evidence," Hodgins disagreed disappointed that it had not arrived yet.

"Well it's not here but I do want you to find out what this is," she replied passing the bottle of demon goo to Hodgins.

He looked really interested in the blue substance, "so where did this come from?"

"When Booth apprehended them that was in a wound on the older one's back. I'd just like to know what it is since the younger one didn't want him being treated in hospital," she replied.

Angela looked concerned at the information that one of them was injured, "so where are they now?"

"Booth took them somewhere safe until the older one has recovered enough to help," she conceded without telling them where.

"So not to FBI headquarters," Hodgins surmised.

"It doesn't matter where they are," Bones argued annoyed at his persistence. "I want updates on everything we have so far in an hour and the results on that substance as soon as you have it," she dismissed and went to her office.

"She seem touchy to you?" Hodgins asked Angela after Bones left.

"Just a bit," she agreed. "Wonder what happened."

"That's really got nothing to do with us," Zack protested on behalf of his absent boss."

"You don't think the older one, Dean, made a pass at her, do you?" Hodgins replied with a shrug and mischievous grin.

"Maybe. Or maybe because she's all facts and figures, they tried to convince her she's wrong about witches and ghosts," Angela mused remembering her attitude on another case and how convincing Dean had been on the tape.

Booth fumbled with the keys as he tried to support Dean and unlock his apartment.

"Sammy can do that for you," Dean slurred not knowing where he was or what was going on; the fever had returned and he thought he might be hallucinating as the floor seemed to be moving by itself and he seemed to be floating down the corridor. He was also thinking how nice the guy smelt and that just wasn't normal.

Sam grabbed the keys and opened the door reflexively checking that there was no-one in the corridor watching them enter the apartment.

As soon as the door was closed Dean's legs gave out. "Hey hold on buddy, you're not in bed yet," Booth coaxed with a grin.

"Hey Sammy you'd better take the couch this guy wants to take me to bed," Dean called to his brother, who was standing beside him.

Booth looked horrified at Sam, who nearly burst out laughing. "Fever's back," Sam smirked. "It must be something to do with the fight; that goo must have contained some sort of aphrodisiac." How do you explain to someone not in the business about lust demons, without sounding whacked.

"Well I hope it wears off quick," Booth responded wanting to get the guy into bed and away from him as fast as possible. "I don't swing that way." He wondered if he would need to handcuff Dean to the bed so he didn't escape but decided not to yet.

"Neither does he," Sam replied defending his brother as they half carried him to the bedroom. "He'll be horrified when I tell him about trying to get you into bed when the fever's gone."

"I'll leave you to sort him out," Booth instructed as they sat Dean on the bed.

"Ah, spoil sport," Dean grumbled to Booth's retreating back. "I thought you'd stay and help. You know he really smells nice Sammy."

Booth almost ran from the room hoping that Father Raymond would be there soon.

"Hey Dean tone it down a bit will you?" Sam pleaded with his brother as he started to help him out of his clothes.

"Tone what down," Dean slurred rubbing himself against his brother. "I just wanted to know what he'd feel like against me."

"Dean this is not the time or place," Sam retorted sharply not believing what he was hearing.

Dean pouted as he fell asleep in his brother's arms and Sam removed his outer shirt. Sam lay his brother down and removed his boots and jeans before covering him up and going to find Booth.

Finding Booth in the kitchen Sam apologized, "I'm sorry about that. Although I'm kinda used it, he's been like it for years when he wants to hook up with someone… though they've always been female before," he grinned. "Look I need to go out and get some stuff to clean his wounds; I'll try not to be long."

"I don't think that's a good idea," Booth replied to the taller man. Sam looked annoyed. "For a start you're officially in custody as Dean's accomplice, the FBI know you're in town and should be in the cells; if you're seen out by yourself you could get arrested. Also, I've got someone coming who needs your help."

Sam looked at him confused, "Who would need my help?"

To Booth's relief there was a knock at the door and he didn't have to explain anything before his visitor arrived. He quickly went to the door and left Sam to follow.

"Glad you could come so quickly Father," Booth greeted the visitor.

Sam wondered why Booth's father needed his help; until the man turned into the room and he realized he was indeed a father; a Father of the Catholic Church.

"Ah, you must be Sam Winchester," Father Raymond extended his hand in greeting.

"Yes Father, but I don't understand?" Sam replied thoroughly confused about why Booth would have a Catholic priest coming to visit.

"Oh, Seeley obviously didn't tell you I was coming," he turned to Booth and tutted. "When he called me to ask about demons and shape shifters I knew he had a hunter in custody; it didn't take much deduction to realize it must be Dean and that you'd be with him."

Sam looked confused and curious, "so how do you know about Dean and me?"

"The famous Winchesters, legends in the hunters world," Father Raymond smiled. "I was a good friend of Pastor Jim before he was murdered; we often met up and discussed your father's quest for revenge and how it had affected you and your brother. He was a good friend and I promised him that I would always be there if you needed me. So where is your brother?"

Sam was still baffled; too much information too quickly to process it all.

Booth turned to the Father, "he's through here?" he led the way. "So Father when I called you, you weren't surprised."

"I was surprised when I first heard through a mutual friend of Jim's, but God works in mysterious ways. So I put my trust that you would call and I would be able to help," he replied as they entered the bedroom.

Dean was totally out of it again as he tossed on the bed.

"Umm, how well did you clean the wound?" Father Raymond asked Sam.

"We were short on Holy Water but I did my best, but that was after we were rudely awoken by some people kicking the door in," he replied realizing that Booth was listening to everything.

"Well let's get it cleaned again," the priest responded calmly indicating that Sam should help him remove Dean's T-shirt and bandage, ignoring Booth's presence.

As soon as they started moving Dean he started talking. "Hey Sammy you're back and brought a friend too. You sly dog, didn't know you were into threesomes." He turned to look at the older man, "and a man of the cloth too, you'll never get to heaven," he smirked at his brother.

Sam regarded his brother with a mixture of confusion, amusement and indignation.

Father Raymond laughed, "so it was a lust demon? Did Dean get covered in goo as you sent it back to hell?"

Sam looked at him, "Not covered but it got into a wound I didn't know he'd got." Sam looked annoyed that his brother had hidden such an important wound from him, forgetting that he had also been covered and they were both too tired to think about Dean's wound the previous night.

"That partly explains it," the priest replied as they finished getting Dean's T-shirt off. "Your brother is probably more like the original target for the reaction to be so severe."

Sam frowned; batting Dean's hands away as they were groping him, "what do you mean?"

"The demon was probably summoned by some silly girl thinking it would get her favorite popstar or actor to come and sweep her off her feet," he explained.

"Oh come on they don't really believe that shit, do they?" Sam asked still trying to get Dean to stop groping him.

"Some do. Just as well they don't work otherwise the latest idols would never have time to work being pulled from one deranged fan to another," he smiled. "Unfortunately having summoned the demon some of them are bound until the person gets what they want. Obviously whoever summoned didn't make their intention clear and give the demon a termination date, so anyone like the dream man is continuing to be overcome by lust for whoever is nearby."

"I wonder who this was started over?" Sam mused still trying to stop his brother rubbing against his crotch.

"Could be anyone? I'm not really up on who's the latest heart throb. It depends what the person summoning the demon included usually it's things like looks, personality, height, wealth but sometimes they just use a name or what they want the person to help them with," the priest replied.

Booth was stood in the doorway listening and not sure he believed any of it, but he did trust the priest. He was amused at Sam' predicament but felt sorry for him. Grabbing his cuffs he cuffed Dean's hands to the headboard, winking at Sam.

"Thanks," Sam said as Dean struggled.

"Not fair," Dean complained rubbing his head along Sam's arm.

"If you don't stop wriggling, I'll have to sedate you," the priest told Dean.

Dean tried to stop but couldn't and the priest carried out his threat. As soon as Dean had relaxed the priest finished cleaning his wound and got Booth to release the cuffs.

"I think the wound has allowed the demon to enthrall his whole system, normally it would be more subtle and wear off once the subject had fulfilled what is expected of them. Since that won't happen with Dean I'm going to hook up a special saline drip, it should clear it out by morning," the priest informed them as he prepared Dean for the drip.

"Special saline drip?" Sam asked glad that his brother was now out of it again.

"Yeah, it's made with holy water, so it'll keep him hydrated and destroy whatever is in his system," the priest explained.

"Will he remember?" Sam asked looking forward to the tease factor this would allow him.

"Unfortunately for him, he'll remember everything, eventually," the priest confirmed as he finished tidying his things away. "Seeley you wanted to know whether a shape shifter existed?" he turned to the older man as they left Dean to sleep.

Sam looked at Booth, "what you believe Dean?"

Booth looked from the priest to Sam, "let's say I'm willing to give him the benefit of a doubt if someone can collaborate his story. Why else do you think you're here and not at FBI headquarters and locked in a cell? The file on your brother is thick with infringements as well as murder, there's enough that most courts would convict. But most of the cases have something that doesn't read right, so when Bones team came up with something strange with the St. Louis dead Dean Winchester I got the bosses to agree to you being in my custody and not in the cells if you agreed to help."

"We hardly agreed to help," Sam replied, "Dean just wasn't in a fit state to run."

"I know but hopefully you can persuade him not to run," Booth stated. "Unless you're in my company or at the Jeffersonian you're fair game to be arrested and charged."

They left Dean to sleep as the priest continued to tell Booth about some of the things that he and the hunters had encountered. Sam added anecdotes of hunts that he had been on including details about the shape shifter and what had happened. Sam enjoyed having someone outside of Dean to talk about their weird life and understand it. Booth was totally confused about everything he was hearing but prepared to accept some of it especially when they explained about vengeful spirits.

They talked until the priest declared it was time he left and Sam went to check on Dean. He sat in a chair where he could watch Dean but not be too close.

Bones had been contemplating what had been said by Dean in the car, 'don't mock until you've seen one'. They already knew the 'bones' in the coffin weren't like anything they'd seen before; was it a different species that was like a chameleon. She was brought out of her thoughts by a knock on the door.

"Angela what's the problem?" she asked politely.

"No problem," Angela smiled, "just thought you might like the results where we can show you why we've come up with our answers."

Dr Brennan smiled, "that's very cryptic. Ok I'll be right with you," she replied getting up from her desk.

When she joined them at Angela's workstation Angela put up a projection of the reconstructed head. "As you can see this looks like more than one head, but we know only one body was buried. The most prominent looks like the picture of Dean Winchester," she pressed a few keys and that part of the head separated from the rest. "Then we checked with the confession tape again and got in touch with the St. Louis police to have pictures of previous suspects in the case." She pressed a few more keys and the head separated into five heads each showing enough that pictures of the other suspects could be superimposed on them."

Dr Brennan looked at the results and was speechless. "You mean you found all these faces in those remains?"

"Yeah, originally it didn't make sense, but when we listened to the tape again and we thought, what if he was telling the truth about a shape shifter," Angela replied.

"But there's no such thing," Dr Brennan dismissed.

"Maybe," Hodgins agreed, "but it seems to fit the facts and who's to say we've discovered all the species on the planet. They're still discovering new species in Flores, Papua New Guinea and South America, so why not here?"

"I'll consider it," she replied dismissively. "What about that substance I asked you to analyze?" she asked him.

"Now that was really interesting, I've never seen anything quite like it," he enthused. "Such a complex mix of chemicals with different release rates. If that stuff gets into your system it would really mess you up."

"Yes ok… so what is it?" she interrupted.

"It's not one thing," he replied passionately waving his arms at each of his descriptions. "First it would make the victim incredibly tired, like a slow acting sleeping tablet. Then it would add flu like symptoms, maybe even causing blackouts. But it's the final part that is really interesting…" he strung out as he waited for Bones expected complaint.

"So what is it?" she snapped.

"It's a powerful aphrodisiac which will have the victim only able to respond to the person who was with them when they got zapped," he grinned at her disbelieving expression. "It's like the ultimate love potion, a drop of this in someone's drink and they become totally devoted to you. The initial effects take a while to wear off but then the perfect partner."

"Oh please," Bones protested, "you're not trying to convince me that mumbo jumbo spell potions exist and work."

"I'm just telling you what I found," Hodgins protested. "Guess we'll have to wait until Booth brings the Winchester's here to find out whether it really works."

Tbc


	4. Chapter 4

**Characters: Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester, Temperance Brennan (Bones), Seeley Booth, others from Bones and Supernatural**

**Summary: When I saw The Usual Suspects I just saw an opening for a cross-over. **

**Spoilers: Huge spoiler for 2.07 The Usual Suspects.**

**Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Eric Krippe's characters from Supernatural and Fox's characters from Bones. No money being made, only my debts are my own (but you're quite welcome to those).**

**No Beta, so all the mistakes are my own.**

**Part 4**

When Dean woke the next morning his head felt like he'd spent the night getting drunk but he knew he hadn't, at least he couldn't remember getting drunk. He opened his eyes and lifted his head to find someone sat in a chair at the bottom of the bed, and it wasn't Sam. Before he was fully awake he was trying to get up only to find that both arms were out of commission; one was handcuffed and the other wrapped so tightly in bandages it wouldn't bend.

He looked at the bandaged one and realized it was attached to a drip. He tried to turn and see what was in the drip but couldn't.

Booth moved towards the bed, "how are you feeling this morning?" he asked.

Dean's head snapped round to watch the man approach. "Been better," he replied looking round for something to defend himself with.

Booth noticed the wild look in Dean's eyes; he'd seen it before when he'd cornered some criminals. "Do you remember anything about the last day?" he asked prepared to explain what he knew.

Dean stopped thinking how to defend himself and thought back. Fighting the demon, getting injured, banishing it, getting Sam cleaned up and to bed. Then what? Waking to find FBI in the room, feeling ill, agreeing to go to Washington. "You're Agent Booth," he stated.

"Yeah, so what do you remember?" he asked.

"That you were taking us to Washington," he looked around in panic. "Where's Sam?"

"Sleeping on the couch; he stayed as long as he could, when the fever broke he agreed to sleep," Booth replied.

"So what's in the bag and what did I do?" Dean asked remembering it was a lust demon and he could have made a pass, or worse, at anyone.

"The drip is Holy Water saline, I am assured by the priest who brought it," Booth replied with a smirk to hide his uneasiness at the situation. "As for what you did, it was mainly suggestions but I think you might have to apologize to your brother."

Dean closed his eyes and remembered groping at Sam's crotch; he flushed and was pleased to remember that his co-ordination had been off. "Anything else I need to know before you'll undo the cuff?" he pleaded not enjoying how vulnerable he felt not being able to use either arm.

Booth smirked he liked the kid but wasn't sure why; he just hoped that with what Father Raymond had said they could actually prove his innocence because it seemed like these guys were like supernatural law enforcers. "That you're here to help and not under arrest," Booth reassured as he undid the cuff.

"So it's in my interests to stay here," Dean reiterated. Booth agreed. "So any chance of getting this off my other arm so that I can go to the bathroom?" he asked.

"Sure but we're on the sixth floor and Sam will wonder where you are if you escape," Booth replied undoing the bandage and taking the cannula out.

Just as Booth finished Sam appeared at the doorway, "so how you feeling this morning jerk."

"Just peachy, bitch," Dean snapped getting out of bed with a wince as he leant on his injured side.

"That's good," Booth responded, "because after breakfast we're going for a drive down to the Jeffersonian to find out what Bones team have discovered."

Dean looked at him confused, "who's Bones?"

"The woman you tried to hit on yesterday," Sam teased. "And she's so out of your league."

Dean looked upset at the remark, he still didn't remember everything but he had a feeling when he did he might have to apologize to a lot of people. Still getting dressed and breakfast sounded like a good idea.

As Dean was getting his shower and Booth was making breakfast Sam's phone vibrated, he didn't want to risk it ringing and Booth wanting to know what it was about.

He flipped it open and quickly read the text from Ash.

'Booth Catholic Father Raymond Ok

Dr skeptic wrks evidence 4 FBI

Anthropologist F&F

Rites books

Crack her you got it

Ash'

Sam quickly sent thanks and closed the phone. He'd already gathered that Booth would be open after the priest came but he didn't know how they would convince a real skeptic. He just hoped the rest of her team were more amenable.

When Sam joined Dean and Booth in the kitchen he wasn't surprised to hear them arguing about the Impala.

"Look I feel fine now, so if anyone is driving my car it'll be me," Dean was insisting.

"Since officially you're both under arrest, either I drive the car or it gets towed to the Jeffersonian for them to examine," Booth counter claimed.

"No-one is taking my car apart," Dean retorted heatly. "And if you want my help you'd better make sure they don't."

"We want your help to clear you," Booth rebuked. "If you'd rather I can just arrest you and have you charged with murder."

Dean stopped and thought, looking round he saw Sam and grinned, "But there're two of us against you, I think we could get away."

Booth sighed this had been much easier when he had been sick, "Maybe, but then you'd be fair game to anyone trying to prove themselves and I think you'd rather live through this.

Sam grinned he knew his brother wouldn't give up, but it didn't sound like Booth would either. Stepping into the fray, "look Dean I think you'd better concede this one before you end up handcuffed to the bench."

Dean looked at his brother, "so even you won't back me? Traitor."

Sam smirked, "Hey if it gets you off a murder charge what's wrong with letting Agent Booth drive again?"

"Again, you mean you let someone else drive my car?" Dean sounded mystified that Sam would allow such a thing to happen.

"I think I was more worried about my dumbass brother who had got zapped by demon slime and let us sleep instead of getting it cleaned up," Sam replied angrily. "And now the Agent is going to drive us to try and solve your wanted problem."

Dean looked at him and was about to open his mouth to argue but one look from Sam had him closing his mouth and admitting defeat. "Fine but my car gets damaged it'll be on your ass," he conceded. "And I ride shotgun, so you'll have fold your jolly green giant legs up to sit in the back; and no kicking me in the back."

As they pulled up at the Jeffersonian Hodgins and Zack were there to greet them.

"Whoa, she's more beautiful in the flesh," Hodgins enthused putting his hand out to run along the bonnet as Dean got out.

"Hey what do you think you're doing," Dean complained. "No touching the car."

Booth grinned, "Since Hodgins will be involved in looking for evidence he'll definitely be touching it. Dean and Sam Winchester this is Dr. Jack Hodgins and Zack Addy, who work for Dr Brennan."

Sam held out his hand to each of them, "pleased to meet you. I guess you're trying to solve the St. Louis case?"

Dean frowned, "how they gonna find evidence on the car when we had to rebuild it about four months ago?"

Booth was confused and looked at him, "what do you mean, rebuilt?"

Sam could see Dean withdrawing at the memory of why they'd had to rebuild the Impala. "We were in a car accident… the car was almost totaled and our dad didn't survive," he explained keeping his eyes on Dean.

"So any evidence would have been lost either in the accident or the rebuild," Bones finished for him joining the brother's beside the car. "In which case there'll be no need for you to have a look at it Hodgins."

Hodgins, Zack and Booth looked upset at her decision, although Booth was happy to have been able to take the car for a spin. Hodgins and Zack looked at Booth for support.

"Sorry guys, she's the boss and if she says there's no point I have to agree with her," Booth shrugged with a grin. Then more seriously, "But guy's you'll have to tell me where it happened, which hospital you were taken to and where the car was repaired. I gotta check out your story."

"Thanks for not messing with my car," Dean muttered still in his own thoughts about losing his dad. "Does that mean I get to drive her to wherever we're staying?" he added more brightly.

Sam was about to bitch about him acting like a kid but Booth got in first, "only if I ride shotgun and you get Sam kneeing you in the back."

Sam felt affronted by the jibe at his long legs, "hey that's not fair, what have I done wrong?"

Booth looked at him, "nothing but your brother's right about your freakishly long legs, I swear your knees were digging in my shoulders through the seat."

Sam knew Dean wouldn't want to talk about the accident, hell he didn't, but if someone didn't give Booth the information they'd still want to take the car apart. He pulled out a piece of paper and pen and quickly wrote the place of the accident and hospital on it and passed it to Booth. Dean noticed but didn't say anything.

Dean stifled a laugh at Booth's comment, "ah poor Sammy legs too long for the back seat," he teased; earning himself a sharp nudge in the shoulder from his brother. Turning back to Booth, "it's a deal; I'll suffer gazelle legs if I drive." Seeing the expectations of Hodgins and Zack he added, "But anyone else is in the back."

As they walked into the building Sam looked around at everything clearly impressed while Dean discussed the merits of different classic cars with Booth and Hodgins.

When Angela saw them coming in she intercepted Dr Brennan, "so he is much hotter in person than the picture," she whispered, but not quietly enough.

"Please ladies you don't have to whisper," Dean smirked. "And who is the lovely lady that has just joined us?" he asked Booth.

Hodgins bristled at Dean's comment, while Sam just rolled his eyes.

"Ah, this is the lovely Angela Montenegro who reconstructs faces from bones, among other things," Booth introduced. "Angela you've already had a look at Dean and this is his brother Sam."

Angela blushed, "I don't know whether you'd like to start with the reconstruction that I created from the St. Louis coffin," she offered.

Dean looked at her, "will I feel flattered?" he flirted.

"Probably not, but you might be able to help us explain it," she suggested feeling embarrassed by the attention.

Sam looked at his brother, mentally pleading that he didn't do anything they would regret. Dean shrugged off whatever Sam was trying to convey and turned to Dr Brennan, "as the boss here I suppose it's up to you."

Sam let out a sigh of relief and Dean gave him a puzzled look.

"Since my team seems to believe your far fetched notion of a shape shifter, Angela's work may be a good place to start. I do have some questions about what happened last night, although I'm sure Booth and Sam can answer those better."

Dean flushed, "I've been told I might have some apologizing to do but since I don't remember it'll have to wait. How would you know anything about what might have happened anyway?"

"You mean besides having to sit next to you on the journey to Washington?" she sniped.

"I take it that it was not a good journey," he responded, "but there was something else."

"I'm used to collecting evidence so I took a sample of that substance that was in your wound and got Hodgins to analyze it."

Dean and Sam looked impressed. "You can do that?" Sam asked.

"It's part of the job description," Hodgins agreed.

"So what was in it?" Dean asked instantly curious about what demons could slime you with.

"It had three main components: a sedative, a fast acting virus and an aphrodisiac," he replied keeping the language non-technical for the uninitiated. "But there's a part which doesn't add up."

"That's probably the part which targets victims to whoever they're with," Sam suggested. Bones looked doubtful so Sam continued, "when Dean was hit by the goo we were together, so once the aphrodisiac got to work anything Dean did was either directed at me or commented on to me." By this time Dean had flushed bright red. "But the sedative makes sense because normally we'd have cleaned everything away and it wouldn't have been a problem, but my eyes were glazed by the time Dean had finished cleaning up my wounds."

"That would have been about two hours after first exposure," Hodgins suggested. "Sorry Dean but the analysis suggested that you'd be attracted to men."

Sam laughed, "Never realized there were demons who worked for the gay community."

Dean was horrified, "well next time you're the one who gets cleaned up second, and no whinging that you've got more injuries."

"You know you'd never do that," Sam rebuked knowing that Dean would always protect him first. "Remember that time when I needed stitches in my back and you drove two miles with a broken wrist, concussion and a gash leaking down your back to get me to hospital and you wouldn't let them treat you until they'd seen me."

Dean smiled at the memory, "yeah but you were being such a girl whining."

"And you passed out, jerk."

"Only after you were being treated," Dean retorted. He frowned, "I seem to be doing a lot of that, bitch."

"Maybe I can sort out an antidote, if you think you'll run into these things again," Hodgins suggested not sure about the banter between the brothers.

Sam and Dean looked at each other and Dean reached out and put his arm around Hodgins, "I think I like this man, he's got good ideas."

"Maybe but since the institute funds research final word on that will go to Dr Goodman and me," Bones interrupted cutting the friendly atmosphere dead. "Now we're here at Angela's lab let's see what she wanted to show you.

Angela picked up her remote and started talking. "When Dr Brennan had the coffin from St. Louis shipped here we all thought it would be a simple case of taking the bones and reconstructing. The first problem for Zack was they aren't normal bone, more like very dense cartilage. Then as I began to reconstruct the skull I was confronted with what looked like more than one head," she projected the image of the superimposed heads on the screen. "Then we went back to your confession in Baltimore," she turned to Dean, who winked and grinned at her, making her blush. "Working on your idea of something that acted like a chameleon we got the details of other suspects in St. Louis and I tried them against the other images," at this point she separated the images and overlaid the pictures from police records."

Sam looked and nudged Dean, "hey that's Zack and that one's the guy we saw arrested."

Booth looked at the images and was listening to Sam, "so you mean you recognize some of these pictures."

"Should do," Dean replied impressed by the images that Angela had created. "We were only there because this Zack guy is a friend of Sam's and his sister rang to say he'd been arrested for murder. Then I end up with the rap, even though the person who accused me was alive."

Dr Brennan looked at Dean still not believing what she was being told. "So you're saying none of these people committed murder but the thing in the coffin did and it wasn't human?

"Look I killed that thing in the box and if I could have I'd have salted and burned it, but without a body I'd still have been on the wanted list," Dean snapped.

"As if anything could keep you off that," Sam mused getting an annoyed look from his brother.

Hodgins interrupted the brother's friendly argument. "The images speak for themselves. We also have checked evidence from each of the murders for DNA, the only human DNA at any of the crimes scenes is the victims and the DNA from the coffin matches any other DNA found at the crime scenes."

"So what do you need me for?" Dean asked perplexed about what he was doing here.

Booth looked at them with a smirk, "you mean apart from the interesting journey and night we've had?"

"Yeah, if you had the answers why did we need to be here?" Dean was pissed at what he thought was them being messed around.

Angela looked uncomfortable, "we only worked this much out when you were being brought in," she excused.

"My team has been working on this since you were arrested in Baltimore and the coffin was sent here from St. Louis, so don't think you can snap at them," Dr Brennan rounded on Dean. "If it wasn't for their hard work you'd be arrested and charged, why they'd want to believe the rubbish you spout I don't know. The facts seem to agree that it wasn't you, but they don't explain what it was."

Dean reeled from the onslaught, yeah maybe he was being unfair but he still didn't know why he was here and why bring Sam. "Look maybe I was hasty, but even if you only worked this out yesterday I still don't know why you want Sam and me here."

Dr Brennan looked him straight in the eye, "personally I'd rather you weren't."

Booth decided to step in, "look when we started the investigation you were still the prime suspect, so we had to arrest you. Then some of the evidence didn't tie-up and we just wanted to talk."

Angela interrupted, "it's my fault, I wanted to see how close the image was to you."

"Hey at least we sorted out what was in that substance for you," Hodgins tried to deflect.

Sam put a hand on his brother to calm him, "you got any coffee, he's always grouchy before his caffeine levels have been restored."

Dean glared at Sam shaking his hand off, "bet you're loving this place geek boy."

Sam grinned and looked around, "it's pretty cool in here." Dean rolled his eyes.

Booth turned to Bones, "you going to be ok with these two? I mean I don't need to leave them, I could stick around."

"We'll be fine," she replied. "You go; I'll call if we need you."

"If you're sure I'll be back in a couple of hours," he responded.

"I'm sure," she smirked as he headed out of the door.

"Where's he off to?" Dean asked Hodgins.

"To report in, don't worry he'll be back; in the meantime Angela wants you to sit for her," Hodgins replied putting his hand on his shoulder and moving him back to Angela's workplace.

"Yeah I can do that, she's kinda cute; has she got a boyfriend?" Dean pried.

"She's off-limits," Hodgins replied curtly as Angela came over.

Tbc


	5. Chapter 5

**Characters: Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester, Temperance Brennan (Bones), Seeley Booth, others from Bones and Supernatural**

**Summary: When I saw The Usual Suspects I just saw an opening for a cross-over. **

**Spoilers: Huge spoiler for 2.07 The Usual Suspects.**

**Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Eric Krippe's characters from Supernatural and Fox's characters from Bones. No money being made, only my debts are my own (but you're quite welcome to those).**

**No Beta, so all the mistakes are my own.**

**Part 5**

Sam had gone with Zack and Bones to find out what they did at the institute while Dean had been whisked away by Angela, back into her room with several cups of coffee and doughnuts.

"So Angela what do you want me to do?" Dean asked feeling uncomfortable around the high tech equipment which he didn't understand. He licked his sugar covered fingers before putting them on any of the computer buttons, trying to find out what happened when he played.

"First I need to take your measurements," she replied collecting a measure from her desk and guiding him to a space away from the equipment.

"What you mean like inside leg measurement?" he asked innocently with a smirk and raised eyebrow.

She flushed and stammered as she attempted to measure his arm length, "Y-Yes, but more like height and arm length. Then I want to check your head measurements against the model."

He grinned as she got him to hold the tape at his shoulder and crouched behind him to take shoulder to floor measurement. "If I'd been told that I was going to be felt up by a beautiful woman, I'd have got here sooner," he smirked and she giggled.

"If I thought you were going to make a pass at my staff I would have insisted Agent Booth stayed to keep an eye on you," Bones snapped as she walked in behind them.

"Hey we're just having a little fun," he complained with a wink at Angela and a smirk. "You do know what fun is don't you, cuz you don't act like you do?" he asked as he turned to look at her.

"This is not fun. You're here to help an investigation, if you're not helping then I can arrange for Agent Booth to have you locked up," she insisted in her usual businesslike manner, trying not to smile as his innocent expression turned into concern.

He looked wary. "I'm helping, just not sure how taking my inside leg measurement helps you decide whether I'm a killer or not," he shrugged, this woman was too prim and boring for his tastes, whereas Angela was much more fun.

Angela smirked before becoming a true professional. "By itself it doesn't but it helps us decide if you could have been the killer in other cases."

"You know, the only case in St. Louis that they identified me at was where the girl survived, so there's no proof of me being at any of the murder sites," he reasoned his face open and non-confrontational..

"So you're saying that was you?" Bones latched on fast to trap him.

Dean looked surprised, "no… no, that wasn't me it just looked like me… What I'm trying to say is how can I be a murderer if no-one died?" She'd managed to kill his playful mood dead and he just wanted this over so Sam and he could get back on the road doing what they understood; not having to deal with these annoying humans.

"I'm sure we'll find out," she replied. "If he causes any more trouble call," she instructed Angela.

"We'll be fine," Angela assured looking up at Dean, as Bones left.

Dean watched Bones leave and then turned to Angela, "is she always like that?"

Angela regarded him seriously as she took his leg measurement. "She's very serious about the work we do here and she doesn't suffer fools."

He looked down at her astounded. "You think I'm a fool?"

"No, I think you take what you do as seriously as she does, but for someone who's life revolves around her work anything that threatens that is regarded with skepticism," she replied as she moved around taking measurements and moving Dean into whatever position she needed.

He felt like a mannequin being moved around but thought better than argue because at least this person was talking to him like a person not some thing that was less than human. "So what does actually happen here?"

"Dr Brennan is an anthropologist and we help her," she started.

"Anthropolo what?" Dean asked confused by a definition he never needed to know.

Angela laughed, "anthropologist, it's someone who studies mankind through its evolution. It often involves looking at the bones of people who have died throughout history to determine how they lived and died."

Dean shivered, "that's creepy, who'd want to dig up bones to do that." He was careful not to say what he usually did with the bones that he dug up.

"Actually it's very interesting, like the image you saw earlier of the St. Louis murderer. That was done by taking measurements and piecing it all together," she replied.

"Yeah that was actually very impressive, got any other good things you can do like that?" he admitted, while trying to understand why people would want to mess with dead people.

"I do a few other things," she agreed. "I work on any video evidence and can reconstruct a murder scene from the injuries found on a body. I've done artist impressions from talking to people."

"So if I knew what a murderer looked like, you could draw a picture from what I told you?" he asked looking further impressed by what this woman could do.

"Yeah pretty much," she agreed with a smile.

"That's really cool," he smirked, thinking of ways it could be used.

Sam was being taken on the grand tour by Zack to keep him out of the way while Dean was with Angela. Bones didn't trust leaving them together and Sam at least showed an interest in what happened here.

Sam had decided to treat this like any other job, gather Intel, find out what is of use, make the connection and get out alive. This was just going to be a little more tricky than usual; first they were dealing with humans and not looking for the monster of the week, so the normal rules go out the window. Second they couldn't talk without being overheard and were being kept separate, which meant passing information would be difficult. Third if they got it wrong Dean would end up dead or in prison, actually that wasn't much different from normal. Fourth these people thought they could help, that always proved a disaster. Fifth although most of the people were open-minded the one who counted was as closed as Fort Knox to visitors.

"So Zack, how long have you worked for Dr Brennan?" he asked, aiming for casual conversation to find out about their main adversary.

"I'm her graduate assistant, I will get my doctorate next year," Zack replied proudly.

"So is she a good boss to work for?" Sam pried.

"She's very supportive and knowledgeable. I have learned a lot since working for her and hope to continue after I've got my doctorate. There are so many interesting things going on here," he enthused.

Sam grimaced, this might be interesting for Zack but it wasn't what he called fun; he thought for a moment that was probably why Dean was always getting at him about being a geek boy. He grimaced at the thought of what Dean thought about him enjoying books and research. "So what sort of things do you do?"

"You mean other than the FBI work that Agent Booth brings to us?" Zack pondered.

"Yeah, I mean surely that's not everything?" he tried to look interested.

"Oh, last month Dr Brennan took me on a dig in Indonesia, we were on an ancient site and found the remains of a priest," he replied enthusiastically.

"Don't you ever worry about bringing a cursed object back here?" Sam asked concern lacing his words as he remembered the things that they had faced.

Zack looked confused. "But they don't really exist," he replied looking at Sam like he was mad.

"Ah the innocence of youth," Dr Hodgins laughed putting his hand on Zack's shoulder. "Zack here is a product of Dr Brennan's teaching and Dr Brennan doesn't believe in anything that she hasn't physically seen. Zack's not quite so sure but he's quoting the boss's line."

Sam raised his eyebrows, "so she doesn't believe in god, ghosts or anything supernatural?"

"No, if she hasn't physical proof, it doesn't exist," Hodgins replied. "Me, I think there's more than most of us know about and I'll give anything consideration; but Dr Brennan doesn't work that way."

"So she's not going to believe anything Dean says about a shape shifter until she meets one?" Sam queried.

"No, it's like this substance that she got off Dean, she knows it's real and that you didn't get it in a bar fight; but fighting a lust demon," he laughed. "Well, that's just going a bit far. So why were you fighting this thing anyway."

Sam liked the way Hodgins seemed interested, as he was guided towards Hodgins lab. Once there Hodgins started showing him the analysis that he had done on the substance and the shape shifter's remains.

Sam seemed reluctant to talk, "it's just what we do."

"Oh come on, there must be more to it than that?" Hodgins nudged, wanting to know more about these things that Dean had mentioned on the video.

"It's the family business," Sam added reluctantly.

"Which isn't what you wanted for yourself," Hodgins surmised.

"I thought I escaped but I got dragged back, now it's my mission too," Sam agreed.

"So how do you find these things?" Hodgins pushed.

Zack was intrigued by the conversation and hoped it wouldn't get scary, "yeah how do you know these things exist and what are they?"

Sam snorted a laugh and opened up, "we find them the same way you find out what's in the goo; we research and look for indications that would be missed by other people. The 'lust demon' was causing people to kill each other after sex, demon's live off strong emotions; love being one of the strongest especially when corrupted. When the person who had been seduced by the goo rejected the demands of the other they would be killed in what looked like a suicide pact."

"So the police would see lovers having a tiff and committing suicide?" Hodgins surmised.

"Yeah but there were too many happening too regularly," Sam explained. "And most of the victims were either related or same sex; it just seemed too off. So we went to investigate, found the evil bitch and killed it."

"But ended up covered in this strange substance," Hodgins grinned.

Sam laughed, "yeah one of the many hazards of the job. Usually its bruises and cuts, occasional broken bones, but I really hate when it's anything worse."

"What's the worse thing that's happened to you?" Zack asked without thinking.

Sam became silent and pensive. Forcing himself to talk he ignored the question, "so how is an antidote for that going?" he asked Hodgins.

Zack was upset that he had been ignored he was quite enjoying this strange conversation and couldn't understand what he'd said to offend Sam.

Hodgins noticed the change in Sam's demeanor when Zack asked his question. "It's going somewhere but not close enough to test yet. You know it seems strange to me that they thought Dean could be the killer."

When Sam looked confused, Hodgins continued, "Well I thought I'd check a few things. So you drive the Impala round the country," he paused.

"So?" Sam questioned.

"In wasn't on any police cameras in St. Louis until after most of the murders and on the one it was seen, it turned up after the event. So you weren't in town until after the most of the murders but the thing's liar was full of trinkets from murders for months earlier; when you were in other towns."

"So you don't think Dean was involved?" Sam asked.

"It doesn't matter what I think, it's what I can prove," he grinned. "And my analysis of Dean's DNA says he may have touched a couple of things but not everything. The strange substance found attached to some of the clothing had the DNA of whatever was in the coffin. We just have to convince Agent Booth and Dr Brennan that whatever it was committed the crimes and not Dean."

"Yeah, any chance of taking this tour back to see how he's getting on?" Sam asked thinking it was nearly time to eat.

Hodgins looked at his watch. "Sure it's time we broke for lunch," he agreed as they headed back to Angela's area.

Back at FBI headquarters Booth was checking the records for the information that Sam had given him. It seemed that three people had been admitted to the hospital, two with minor injuries and the third had been on the critical list and not expected to survive.

Booth rang the hospital to get further details. They confirmed that the older of the sons woke from a coma and was miraculously healed, while the father who had been doing well died of a massive coronary after talking with both sons. It didn't make sense, from the hospital reports it seemed like Dean should have died and their father should be alive.

Booth decided to check all the other accounts that they had on the Winchester family through their many aliases. Reading through the files he found that although they had been in hospital on numerous occasions it was only for broken bones and major injuries and yet he had noticed some quite major scars on both boys that were not explained by these visits. If he discounted the incident in St. Louis, it still seemed that Dean should have been dead at least twice over and how does someone recover from irreparable heart damage?

There had been two house fires where Dean had been involved in rescuing his brother and women had been killed. Although he knew others would blame them in some way, he wasn't so sure. It seemed bad luck followed them around, or maybe they went to sort out bad luck for others; that's what the priest had suggested.

He took the files that had been compiled thinking that it was Dean that was at fault and started reworking them. Suppose what he had been told by the priest was true, that they came too town after the events had started; there would be a paperwork trail to follow. He knew it wouldn't be easy with all the different aliases they used but a lot was fake credit cards and those he could follow.

After an hour he had got a basic handle on three towns that they had arrived in after problems had started and that when they left the problem had disappeared.

Walking into his boss's office he hoped to get his support. "Hey boss I think we need to re-work the files on the Winchesters," he told his chief.

"Why? Do you believe that X-files stuff they were spouting?" the older man looked up from his desk.

"I don't know what I believe but I've been trying to check some things out," Booth replied rubbing the back of his neck. "We were going to get the car examined, see if we could find any links to St. Louis or maybe some of the other things that we thought they were involved in; then Dean says that the car was almost totaled four months ago."

"We don't have that on record, how did that slip through?" his boss wanted to know.

"For sometime we've been trying to track Dean and Sam together and John separately, but at some point they joined up together," he explained.

"And this car accident happened during that time?" his boss posed.

"Yeah, the strange thing is that the hospital didn't expect Dean to pull through; then a miracle happens and he's healed but within a short time of talking to his sons John is dead," he marveled.

"So we can stop trying to track John," his boss interrupted. "So with your faith you think something is trying to keep Dean out there doing whatever it is he does with his brother."

"There's something strange about them and I'd like to put it to the test with your permission," he requested.

"If your test is successful what does it mean for this case?"

"That we'll have to bury it and take them off our wanted list," Booth replied. "Might even have to use their skills some time."

"We could re-bury those remains under a different name, say that it was mistaken identity," his boss agreed. "I'll get started on the paperwork for that and put a team on working the evidence your way; I just hope you're right I'd hate to lose you."

"Me too," Booth admitted as he left the office. Taking out his cell he rang Bones.

"_Dr Brennan," she answered._

"Are they behaving themselves?"

"_Sam is but Dean is a chauvinistic pig, who I want out of here as soon as possible," she grumbled._

He grinned at her dislike of Dean. "Bones can you set up cameras in Angela's workspace?" he asked avoiding any come back.

"_I can, but why?"_

"I want to do a little experiment with them and I need it on camera."

"_That sounds evasive," she muttered._

"Yeah, I'll let you know when I get there, should be back in half an hour," he finished.

"_Ok, I'll see you then," she grumbled._

Booth went to get everything he needed before going back to the Jeffersonian.

Dean was perched on the edge of the tall stool as Angela took his facial measurements to compare with the model she had produced. He didn't know why but he was beginning to feel lightheaded and hoped she would be finished soon. He didn't realize how wrapped up in their work people like this could become and he really didn't want to interrupt the look of concentration on her face.

They were still doing the small talk but while she was measuring she was looking too closely to notice the sheen of sweat and the pallor of his skin.

"Hey Angela do you think we could take five?" he asked feeling like his knees were about to give way.

Angela blinked and really looked at him; she was shocked that he didn't look well. "You should have said something. Come on let's get you sat in a chair," she instructed and moved to help him to the nearest chair.

Unfortunately the act of moving, had him collapsing in her arms as Dr Brennan walked in.

"Angela, I thought I told you to call me if he tried anything?" she admonished.

Angela tried to carefully lower Dean to the floor, although because he was that much taller and heavier it didn't work very well. "He didn't try anything," she responded, "he passed out and that was my fault."

Dr Brennan went to help her raise his legs as Angela loosened his belt. "How was it your fault?" she asked noticing the sheen of sweat on his skin.

"I was concentrating on taking measurements and forgot how long he'd been perching or standing still," she explained.

Just then the boys rounded the doorway. Sam took in the scene of his brother unconscious on the floor with two women seeming to be undressing him.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" he complained loudly, rushing to his brother's side.

"Sorry, he passed out," Angela explained meekly. By which time Dean was beginning to come round.

Dean looked up at the people looking at him, realized what had happened and was annoyed at his own weakness that had allowed it to happen. Turning to Sam, "Nice to see you little brother, mind giving me a hand up?" he asked.

"Might want to check your buttons and belt first," he smirked.

Dean was confused but did as instructed and was mildly annoyed to find that his belt and jeans button had been undone. "Ladies if you want the clothes off just ask," he joked, putting his hand out to his brother to help him up as soon as he had refastened his clothing. When he got to his feet he swayed for a second.

Sam was concerned, "I think you need some food."

"That's a great idea, so where you taking me for lunch?" Dean grinned slapping his brother on the back.

"I've had sandwiches brought in," Bones informed him curtly. "I thought you'd like something similar to Booth, so took the liberty of ordering for you."

"Hope you got something healthy for Sammy, he's all eco-friendly veggie crap; gotta watch the cholesterol," Dean laughed as Sam shoved him in the shoulder.

"Yeah well at least I don't keep doing girly swooning," Sam retaliated and gave him a death glare.

Bones was fed up with the bitching they seemed to enjoy, "I don't care who does what, lunch is in the rest area and I think we all need a break." Turning to Hodgins, "if you would take these two there I want a quick word with Angela before we join you."

Hodgins took the hint and ushered Sam and Dean away before they had time to say anything.

Angela looked at Dr Brennan, "I'm sorry that was my fault, I should have been paying closer attention. I forgot that he hadn't been well and he was just chatting about things so I didn't notice until he asked for a break."

"That's ok, I should probably have checked in earlier," the other woman replied. "Booth wants to interview them on camera, I don't know what its about, but we're getting a few extra cameras set up in here; I just thought you should know."

"Oh, ok," was all Angela could think to say before they went to join the others for lunch.

Tbc


	6. Chapter 6

**Characters: Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester, Temperance Brennan (Bones), Seeley Booth, others from Bones and Supernatural**

**Summary: When I saw The Usual Suspects I just saw an opening for a cross-over. **

**Spoilers: Huge spoiler for 2.07 The Usual Suspects.**

**Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Eric Krippe's characters from Supernatural and Fox's characters from Bones. No money being made, only my debts are my own (but you're quite welcome to those).**

**No Beta, so all the mistakes are my own.**

**Part 6**

Still feeling the after effects of the lust demon's goo all Dean wanted to do was curl up and go to sleep after they had finished eating. Sam kept looking at him and trying to pull him into whatever geek conversation was going on, but he really wasn't taking any notice.

"Dean thinks anyone who reads a book is a geek," Sam laughed bringing Dean's attention back to the conversation with a frown.

"I've read books," he complained, trying to work out what they might have been talking about but not really interested.

"Yeah," Sam grinned giving him a pat on the shoulder, "for research, but you'd rather see the film version."

"Hey don't knock it, the film usually tells me if it's worth reading," he replied feeling irked that his brother was putting him down in front of these other people, it usually happened when they were on their own teasing each other.

"So which books have you read after seeing the film?" his brother asked thinking maybe he'd been wrong about his brother not reading.

"None, never found one interesting enough that the film synopsis wasn't enough," he answered, smirking at Sam's surprise at him using the word 'synopsis'. Turning to Bones he asked, "Look I know you usually just work here but is there anywhere I could put my head down for an hour or so?"

Dr Brennan was surprised by the request but realized that he had zoned out earlier and seemed to be finding it hard to stay with the conversation. She tried to think where he could do least harm, "I could have a couple of chairs moved to my office," she suggested. "I can keep on eye on you there."

The chairs they were sat on had no arms and by pushing a few together they would be long enough for him to lie out on.

"Thanks that'd be great, though you really don't need to worry about me doing anything," he replied feeling annoyed that she didn't trust him; he really didn't want to look too deeply into what they did here. Turning to his brother, "you heard the lady Sammy," he instructed as he got up to move one himself.

Realizing that his brother was still weak Sam pushed him back down, "I've got it jerk. Wait until it's sorted."

Dean collapsed back down, relieved that he didn't have to do any of the carrying, "thanks bitch."

When it was just Dean, Angela and Bones, Bones asked, "Why do you call each other bitch and jerk all the time?"

Dean frowned and thought for a bit, "habit from when he hit puberty," he shrugged resting his head on the back of the seat while he waited.

"So who started it?" she probed, always trying to understanding the working of the male brain; especially when they didn't fit the mould like these two.

Dean shook his head, "can't remember, something about him always bitching about our lives and him thinking I was a jerk to accept it. Too long ago to remember who said what when, but it just stuck."

"So what was so wrong about your lives?" she continued, Angela tried to get her to stop but she wasn't taking any notice.

"Not normal enough for Sam, we moved too often," he explained vaguely.

Bones was just about to push further when Sam and the others returned. "Your bed awaits you jerk," he informed Dean sarcastically.

"Thanks bitch," Dean responded getting to his feet and following Sam to Bones' office. "See you in a bit," he turned to the ladies with a flourish.

"Yeah, just be careful what you say," Sam replied having caught the end of the conversation.

"Not planning on saying anything, just sleeping," Dean replied as he sat down taking his jacket off for a pillow.

Sam sat in the guest chair in the room as Bones walked in. "Its ok you don't have to stay, I'll be here," she turned to Sam before taking a seat at her desk.

"I just want to be here incase he has a nightmare," Sam replied.

"You're the one who has nightmares, Sammy," Dean rebuked not bothering to open his eyes. "The worse thing that will happen is I'll turn over and fall on the floor. So go cuz you chatting ain't helping me sleep."

Sam huffed but got up to leave, "ok, I'll just be down the hall."

"Sounds like you're close," Bones pried after Sam had gone.

"Living in the same motel room for most of our lives, doesn't give you the chance to be anything else," he responded hoping she would shut the hell up and let him sleep.

A few seconds later he could here her typing on her computer. He remembered Sam mentioning something about her writing books in the car with Booth. He hoped he and Sam weren't going to be characters in her next story; though if they were he could think of some names for them. He drifted off to the sound of computer keys being pressed.

Booth arrived back soon after Dean had gone to sleep. Bones and Booth decided to leave him to sleep while the interview room was being prepared and keep Sam out of the way until they were ready.

"Look I know you don't believe their story but everything they've said has been checked out," Booth told Bones, while they were standing just inside Angela's room.

"Maybe they're just good at covering their tracks," she argued not convinced of their innocence and their crazy stories of shape shifters.

"I checked out the car crash and hospital story they gave us," he replied. "Apart from some crazy twists it checks out."

"What do you mean crazy twists?" she was confused, how do you get crazy twists in a car accident?

"Seems when they were taken to the hospital Dean was at death's door and their father was expected to make a full recovery," he replied.

"But Dean is alive and sleeping in my office," she didn't understand. "And Sam said their father died."

"Yeah that's the strange twist," Booth answered. "Dean wakes up fully cured and after John has spoken to them he collapses in the next room with a massive coronary. It doesn't add up unless there's something else helping Dean out."

"Why just Dean?" she pondered.

"Because this isn't the first time that he's recovered from a terminal condition, a few months earlier he was admitted to hospital with repairable heart damage; a short while later he visits a faith healer and is cured, but he's the one of the last people that gets healed."

"So that's why you want to do this interview?" she asked. "Are you going to ask him about those?"

"I've got a few cases that I want them to explain," he answered.

"And, what else?" she pushed.

He smirked, "that's the surprise for later."

"And am I going to be able to sit in?" she was intrigued and wanted the chance to find out the logical answer to what had happened; the best way to do that would be sit in on the interview and ask questions.

"I think they might open up better with just me," he replied. To her pout he continued, "They know you're a skeptic so they'll be more defensive."

"And you'll believe every word, so you need the balance in there," she countered.

He smirked, "you'll lock heads and they'll walk." She rolled her eyes. "It's not in anyone's interest not to sort it now, so you're not coming in."

"It's my workplace," she protested.

"Do you want me to see Dr. Goodman?" he threatened.

She looked surprised.

"Did I hear my name mentioned?" Dr Goodman asked as he joined them.

Booth looked at Bones, "no… we were just discussing this case," she replied hastily.

"Good… I was surprised that you wanted to interview these suspects here Agent Booth," he inquired. "I would have thought you had better resources at FBI headquarters."

"I thought it would be less stressful here… and since most of the evidence is here it would be easier to confirm anything," Booth replied smoothly.

"Ah that explains everything," Dr Goodman replied. "Let me know if there is anything you need."

"I'm sure Bones will have it covered," Booth smirked and looked at his partner.

Everyone left Dean to sleep for an hour before Sam went to wake him with a cup of coffee.

"Hey Dean, how you feeling now," he asked gently as he put a hand on his brother's shoulder.

Dean jerked awake turning over and falling straight on the floor. "What the fuck," he exclaimed as he landed on his injured side. Looking up at Sam, who had moved out of the way as soon as he realized what Dean was going to do; so as not to spill hot coffee on him; Dean tried to get his bearings. "What'd you do that for?" he asked getting off the floor and onto a chair.

"Booth's back and he wants to talk to us in Angela's room," his brother replied handing him the coffee.

"What about?" Dean asked gratefully accepting the drink and gulping it down, still trying to fully wake up.

"Don't know he's not telling anyone but I do know they've set up cameras to record it," Sam answered.

"That can't be good," his brother commented as he got to his feet and they started going to meet Booth. He couldn't believe it would be anything good if the FBI guy wasn't telling anyone. He looked around trying to see if there was anyone new lurking around. What did they have to tell the dude about the accident for? Everything was going quite well until the agent disappeared.

Dean was eyeing everybody they passed warily as they entered Angela's area.

Booth smiled at him, "Don't be so worried this won't hurt."

"Who's worried," Dean tried for nonchalant but his eyes betrayed the truth. He understood pain but last time he said anything on camera he nearly got killed.

"I checked out your story about the accident and it pans out," Booth tried to get under Dean's defenses. He watched Dean relax a little before adding, "But some things don't seem to add up and I'd like you to explain."

Booth tried to get them into seats opposite the camera while he would be sat to the side.

Dean was back on edge, "why?" he snapped.

Sam looked at his brother and could see the tension radiating off him, this wasn't a conversation either of them wanted. "What's the problem?" Sam asked more cordially, as they took their seats, "And why on camera?"

Booth suddenly realized that they thought that this was to trap them, he grinned raising his hand in submission. "I'm not doing a good job at getting information from either of you. Just as well I'm not aiming for a confession of your guilt; don't think I'd get one."

Dean frowned leaning on the arm of the chair, "so what are you after?"

"As I said I checked out the car accident and the hospital records, but according to the hospital I should've been talking to Sam and John now. But then you had a miraculous recovery and John died," Booth directed his answer to Dean. "I just want to try and understand what happened to change the expected course of events."

Sam looked at Dean; any mention of their dad's death usually affected him badly. Dean sat looking at his hands in his lap trying to still his thoughts. He knew his dad had made a deal to save him but he didn't know exactly what that deal was or whether anyone would believe him.

"We don't know for sure," Sam replied, hoping to deflect the question and not make Dean feel more uncomfortable. "Dean was in a coma and the doctors at the hospital weren't sure if he would survive. After Dean woke up feeling fine dad came in and spoke to us. I left him with Dean for a few minutes and he must've left before I came back, cuz I found him on the floor of the next room. They pronounced him dead shortly after."

Booth thought they knew more but decided not to press. "This wasn't the first time that you had been miraculously cured Dean. What happened on that other occasion?" he pressed the older Winchester.

Dean put his head in his hands and was glad it was only the three of them. Sam had already told him what had happened with the priest so he knew Booth wasn't totally disbelieving; but how do you tell someone that the faith healer did it and get them to believe you. "You found out about the heart damage then?" he asked still trying to compose an answer.

"Yeah and about the faith healer, who cured you," Booth admitted hoping it would make it easier. Sam looked surprised at how much he had found out.

"So what do you really want to know?" Dean sighed, resigned to having to admit what happened.

"Why do you keep bouncing back?" Booth blurted out, and then felt guilty. "It just seems strange."

Dean looked at him with a disbelieving stare, "you think it's strange, how do you think I feel? By rights I should be dead but something keeps stopping the reaper collecting his prize. First time Sammy found a preacher whose wife was into the black arts, saved me but he managed to stop her before her plan to change her mind finished me off. Then my dad uses the black arts to save me but must've traded himself as part of the deal."

"You don't know that Dean," Sam argued turning to his brother.

"Like hell I don't," Dean snapped back. "I was dead, then I'm cured and he's dead; it doesn't take much of a genius to see what must've happened. I'm not happy about it, but I can't change it now."

"So you believe magic and voodoo work?" Booth queried, hoping that wasn't what they meant.

"Some," Dean replied, hoping this conversation wasn't going where he thought it was.

Booth just sighed and thought about where he should steer the conversation, this was getting officially uncomfortable. "Ok this is for the camera," he started getting up to turn it on.

"You mean everything so far has been just between us?" Dean asked perplexed looking at Booth with a frown.

"Yeah, I didn't know if it would be something you'd want anyone else hearing," he replied with a smirk, hoping that he was gaining a bit of trust.

"Thanks, but next time let us know," Dean complained, not sure what to make of this dude. "So what do you want to know for the camera?"

Booth started the camera before asking the question. "So in your own words, why were you in St. Louis and what happened?"

Dean looked at Sam then back at the camera, "brief synopsis. Sammy got an email from a friend; her brother had been accused of murder. We went to investigate and saw this creature on video surveillance which looked like her brother. While checking out the sewers we found the creature and after a couple of setbacks I shot it while it was impersonating me and trying to kill Sammy."

"And this creature was what?" Booth prompted.

"It was a shape shifter," Dean replied with a shrug. "They can transform themselves it any creature they like; that one was looking for love in all the wrong places."

"You mentioned that you realized it was a shape shifter from video surveillance, how?" Booth questioned.

"When it turned its eyes flashed white," Sam replied. "A normal person's eyes would have a dark iris."

"You didn't think it would be camera flare?"

"No… but the police probably did," Sam answered. "That's how the police miss some of these things, they assume it's a trick of the light and don't look any deeper."

Booth continued to ask questions about some of the other cases that Dean and Sam had worked on. He got them to explain in their own words what had happened and when; he hoped that these would tie up with the research being carried out by the FBI team that his boss had set up.

After three hours of talking Dean was getting hungry and tired, Sam was getting bored talking about hunting and Booth decided he had enough to take back to headquarters. There were bits when the brothers argued about details or blamed the other for delays but they all came back to different creatures or things causing problems and the Winchester boys dealing with them and getting out of town.

Booth still wasn't sure that these things they talked actually existed but if the evidence that the teams pulled up collaborated their stories, then they were both be in the clear. Then there was the case of X5494 where a woman in New Orleans claimed a Zombie killed her husband; he just wondered if they would go through the evidence with him.

Angela knocked on the door breaking his thoughts and the conversation. "Excuse me but we're all heading home, I just need to get my bag," she excused.

Booth looked at his watch, "sorry we were just finishing," he replied.

As she went to get her bag, she asked, "so have you finished completely or will you be here tomorrow?"

"We've still got a couple more things to talk about," Booth replied. "Has Bones got everything she needs to sum up?"

"I think she's miffed that she wasn't in here for the interview," Angela confided. "But generally we've got our account ready."

"So after lunch tomorrow we should be able to complete everything," he replied looking from her to the Winchesters.

"That sounds like fun," Dean forced himself to be pleasant, "but what are Sam and I going to do until then? I mean much as it was fun being tied to your bed last night, I'd rather like to avoid the bondage scene tonight. And when do we get to eat, we're not so hot on the places in Washington; we sort of try not to head in this direction."

Bones walked in to the tail end of Dean's rant. "I'm sure we can find you a cheap motel and bar for the night," she interjected.

"You're booked into the Four Seasons Hotel all expenses paid by the FBI," Booth stated dryly ignoring Bones comment.

"So we're like on an expense account?" Dean grinned, his mind already thinking of ways of enjoying himself.

"Within reason," Booth corrected, "and hookers aren't included. You've expected to be back here at 10am or a warrant will be issued."

"Yeah. So what names are we booked in under?" Dean asked enthusiastically.

"I'll come with you to book in," Booth replied. "Then after dinner I'll leave you to your own devices."

Sam rolled his eyes knowing that Dean would already be thinking of plans to use as many facilities as possible and maybe dragging out their stay for an extra day.

"So are we all invited to dinner?" asked Hodgins with a smirk, he might be able to afford it but who turns down a free meal.

"Hell yeah," Dean replied. "You managed to keep my geek brother amused while Angela took care of me… that deserves a reward," he continued as he put his arm around his brother (to avoid the expected shoulder shove). Angela blushed and Hodgins tried to laugh although he wasn't happy about Dean's implied slur on Angela.

As they walked out Dean continued, "So who's going with who? Sammy will be shotgun cuz I guess you've got your own car now," he turned to Booth.

"I'll come with you," Hodgins stated. "You'll need directions."

Bones looked at Angela, "If we go with Booth and Zack goes with Dean then we'll be covered."

"You sure you should be driving," Sam asked, knowing how tired Dean looked.

"I've never scratched my baby, unlike you, and I'm not starting now; so shotgun for you," Dean stated firmly as he opened the car.

Tbc


	7. Chapter 7

**Characters: Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester, Temperance Brennan (Bones), Seeley Booth, others from Bones and Supernatural**

**Summary: When I saw The Usual Suspects I just saw an opening for a cross-over. **

**Spoilers: Huge spoiler for 2.07 The Usual Suspects.**

**Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Eric Krippe's characters from Supernatural and Fox's characters from Bones. No money being made, only my debts are my own (but you're quite welcome to those).**

**No Beta, so all the mistakes are my own.**

**Part 7**

As he got into his car Booth pulled out his phone and rang the hotel, "Agent Booth I made reservations in the name Winchester… yeah the reservations have been confirmed… yeah, there will be a party of seven for dinner… we will be there in half an hour… In the restaurant… Yeah that'll be fine thanks Carlton."

"What was that all about?" Bones had been eyeing Booth curiously.

"The original booking was for the Winchesters and I was only going to stay until they were settled in, but with the gang wanting to join them for dinner I was pulling a favor," he replied dismissively.

Bones and Angela were puzzled. "Why a favor?" Angela asked confused.

"When we use the place for protective custody all food is eaten in the room," he explained uncomfortably rubbing the back of his neck before starting the car. "I just thought it might be easier if we all ate in the restaurant."

Angela flushed, "Oh, yeah much better."

"So you use this place often?" Bones queried with a frown.

"Sometimes it's easier than finding a safe house when we're setting up a new identity," he replied as he maneuvered the car onto the highway. "The hotel has good security and food."

"So this has nothing to do with you liking them and believing everything they say?" Bones probed with a grin.

Booth looked at her confused, "Hey, I don't like your assumption… they are in protective custody from being arrested," he argued. "And I don't believe everything they say… but you got to admit they don't seem to take life too seriously… have no responsibilities… and seem to have fun," he grinned.

"Oh yeah… live out of cheap motels and risk being arrested on a daily basis… I can really see you doing that," Bones replied sarcastically.

"When I was taking measurements I noticed lots of faded scars on Dean's face and arms," Angela noted sadly. "It must be a hard life they lead and they seem to take things very seriously, just different rules."

"What fighting ghosts," Bones laughed. "Don't tell me they've got you believing them too? What were you talking about?"

Angela laughed, "After you left he asked about you, then we talked about the work we do. He seemed interested and kept the conversation away from what he does."

"I'm surprised he wasn't bragging and trying to impress you," Bones responded. She frowned, "what did he want to know about me anyway?"

"Just wanted to know if you were always so snappy… I said that you didn't suffer fools… I think he was annoyed that you might think he was a fool," Angela replied.

"Bet that went down well," Booth smirked. "One thing I've learned about them is they are definitely not fools."

"And when did you learn that?" Bones retorted angrily.

"Listening to Father Raymond and Sam talk about their worlds and going through their files. If even half of the cases Father Raymond attributed to the Winchester family were real they couldn't be fools" he replied.

"Who's Father Raymond?" Bones queried wondering why Booth would believe such nonsense.

"Priest at my church," he admitted. "I called him when we were on the road, thought he might be able to help with whatever was wrong with Dean."

"And I suppose he cured him with a prayer," Bones scoffed.

"Holy water actually," Booth smirked. "But while Dean slept Father Raymond was telling me some stories and occasionally Sam would pipe in and correct some of the details or say it was something that took place where he was at college. I got the impression that Sam didn't want to talk about anything."

"So how does this Father Raymond know about their exploits?" Bones asked still not convinced.

"He does local exorcisms and is part of the hunter community… or so I found out last night. The Winchesters are legends in the community… even if they're not usually part of it," he finished as they pulled up in front of the hotel and got out so the valet could park the car.

Dean pulled up behind and although everyone else got out he refused. "You don't touch my own car," he said to the valet as Sam was grabbing their bags and making sure that no-one else touched them.

The valet was going to argue before Booth slipped him a tip and suggested that he get in the passenger seat and showed Dean where to park.

When Dean entered the lobby of the hotel he looked around in awe as some of the patrons stared at him. He turned to Booth, "You sure we're at the right place?"

Booth smirked, "yeah, let's get you booked in."

Dean looked at Sam and they both shrugged. "We're not really dressed for the place," Sam suggested.

"Don't worry, they've had rock stars dressed worse here," Booth responded.

Dean mused and grinned, "Yeah, I could do that."

Booth wondered what Dean was planning and decided to avoid a scene later, "Its ok the manager thinks you're here as witnesses, no need to create an identity." Turning to the manager, "Hi Carlton, this is Dean and Sam Winchester, could we have their keys please?"

"Certainly Agent Booth," the man responded turning to retrieve the key and a note. "West Wing 507 and there's a note for you," he continued passing Booth the items. "Will your other guests be accompanying you to the Suite or waiting for you in the lounge?"

Dean and Sam were busy looking around the lobby. Dean looked nervous, the lobby was larger than some of the motels that he'd stayed in and full of people who looked down their noses at anyone wearing ripped jeans. Sam was teasing Dean that they wouldn't need to salt all the doorways and windows of the hotel. Dean was flipping him off relatively politely but still looking a little wary; they'd been thrown out of places less posh than this.

Booth turned to Bones, "do you want to wait in the lounge?"

Hodgins had overheard the manager mention that it was one of the Suites, "you don't mean you want to abandon us down here? This might be the only time Zack gets to look in a suite here."

"Jack you can't just invite yourself up to their room," Bones scolded with a smirk.

"Why would he want to see our room?" Dean asked puzzled, having missed that it was a suite.

"It's not just a room," Hodgins enthused, "you've got a suite."

"You mean more than one room," Dean replied totally confused. "Why would we need more than one room?"

Booth smiled, "It's generally reserved for department business but since we don't need it for anyone else I thought you might enjoy using it."

"So where is this 'suite'?" Dean asked as a young man came over to take his bags. Dean glared at the man keeping a tight hold on his bags. "Thieves are a bit pushy in here," he commented.

"Dean he's not trying to steal them, it's his job to carry them to your room," Sam smirked.

"Yeah well he ain't carrying mine so he can back off," Dean snarled at the man, who stepped back nervously.

"It's ok Rick just lead the way," Booth told the young man and handed him the keys. "So are we all going up, or do you want Bones and her team to wait down here?" he asked the Winchesters.

Sam looked at Dean, "I'm not planning on walking around naked so what's the problem?" Dean told Sam.

"Nothing," Sam replied.

"So they coming or what?" Dean asked.

"They can come," Sam responded.

"Ok, so that's sorted we all go," Dean turned to Bones and her team as the lift doors opened.

Rick showed them to one of the Capital suites on the fifth floor. Sam looked impressed as did Bones' team; Booth enjoyed the looks of amazement on their faces but it was Dean's reaction which made him smile.

"Jesus Sam, this place is freaking enormous… we've been in houses smaller than this," Dean turned to Booth. "You mean the FBI pays for people to stay in a place bigger than most people's houses?"

Booth stood with his hands on his hips and grinned, "Not all the time but it's a fringe benefit of turning states evidence."

"You gotta be kidding, is that the carrot you dangle at them?" Dean marveled as he took in the entertainment system and bar. "Turn states evidence and you get to stay in your own suite with better equipment than you had at home." He turned and looked at Booth not quite believing it, "How come we're here?" Both he and Sam started doing a recon of the Suite still holding their bags.

"Thought you deserved a break after yesterday," Booth admitted loudly, not sure where they had gone to.

Zack just looked around open mouthed until Hodgins told him he'd catch flies. Bones and Angela looked at each other clearly impressed with the Suite going over to look out of the window.

Dean had found the master bedroom and Sam the second bedroom. "Suite or not I'm not sharing a bed with Sam," Dean yelled out.

"You don't have to, I've got my own," Sam replied as he put his bags on the bed and checked out the dressing area and bathroom.

"You got a spare room and bathroom?" Dean shouted to his brother.

"Yeah, it's known as a dressing room," Sam smirked as he yelled back.

They met back in the lounge area and Dean picked up a leaflet with the hotel services. "So while we're here we can indulge?" he asked Booth with a wicked grin.

Booth looked at him suspiciously, "within reason," he replied cautiously.

"Does that include one of these muscle melt sports massages, although Sammy would probably prefer the girly aromatherapy one?" Dean grinned and Sam flipped him off. "Gotta try out the fitness club, never needed one but always wondered what 'normal' people saw in them… Hey it says here we could have a PlayStation, never tried one of those."

Sam looked at his brother, "Dean you're not a kid."

His brother looked taken aback, "I know, but if we're not on a job we may as well really enjoy it... When're we going to have the opportunity to indulge ourselves again?" he shrugged. "It says you can get your internet access and a paper, so you can carry on researching geek boy. Maybe you can find our next job on the FBI's money."

Booth was wondering what sort of monster he'd unleashed by bringing Dean here, Sam seemed much more restrained but that could have been because of going to university. "Try anything but no more than one spa treatment a day," he informed them, hoping that they wouldn't be there too long. "I arranged for us to have dinner in the restaurant so we better get down soon."

Dean looked at his watch, "give us…" he looked at Sam, "twenty minutes and we'll be ready." He disappeared into his bedroom.

Booth looked at Sam, "yeah twenty minutes," Sam agreed looking at his own watch and disappearing into his own room.

"Wonder if he's always that manic?" Bones asked Booth.

"Shouldn't have thought so, but when you suggested any motel… I thought I wonder what they'd think of here… took a bit of string pulling… it's usually reserved for high profile cases," Booth grinned checking the note he had been given.

Angela looked at him, "where would you normally have put them up?"

"There's a Best Western we often use and the Capitol Hill Suites," he replied.

"Yeah well I hope this doesn't end up as a disaster," Bones complained. "I don't think Dean would know how to act in a normal restaurant and this isn't a normal restaurant judging by the menu."

Exactly twenty minutes after he'd disappeared Dean returned to the room in maroon shirt (no tie) and dark grey suit pants looking more like a casually dressed businessman than his usual workman look. Even Bones wasn't sure it was the same guy until he opened his mouth.

"Hey Sammy you done yet… people here waiting for some chow," he called grinning at Bones when she looked surprised.

Booth smiled, "the chameleon at work."

Dean looked confused then looked at himself, "hey can't go embarrassing you in public. 'Sides never pick up a classy chick in my usual gear," he winked.

Sam walked out before anyone could reply looking equally as ready for his prom date, minus jacket. "I miss anything?" he asked.

"Nah," Dean replied turning for the door.

Bones looked at Booth before she asked, "What did you do with the guys we came in with?"

"Locked them in a box until later," Dean teased as he led the way to the lift.

Booth led the way to the restaurant closely followed by Bones and Sam, with Dean and Hodgins at the back talking about the Impala and music. They were led to their table with Booth at the head with the ladies on either side, Zack sat next to Bones with Hodgins next to him, on the other side Sam sat next to Angela with Dean next to him. Hodgins and Dean's conversation continued until they ordered, while at the other end of the table they talked about college and the institute. Booth was wishing he was sat at the other end of the table because that conversation seemed more fun and he could probably talked to Dean about some of the weapons he carried.

Dean looked at the menu, "obviously not designed for people to eat but to look pretty… more up your street Sam," he commented before deciding not to have a fancy starter but have the main course which looked like steak. So far he'd done nothing to annoy Bones and he was hoping to keep it that way.

Sam looked at him, "you're having what?"

Dean looked annoyed as he replied, "The Short-Ribs and Dry-Aged Strip Steak Duo, Pommes Purée, Slow-Roasted Carrots and Shallots, Braised Jus."

Sam grinned, "Do you even know what that is?"

"It's my meal so I don't know why it matters to you," Dean replied irritated.

"So you don't know?" Sam smirked.

"In common terms steak, mash, carrots, onions and gravy," Dean replied, "satisfied."

Sam was surprised and shrugged, "Ok just didn't want you ordering something you wouldn't eat."

"No what you mean is you think I'm too stupid to interpret the crap people write to make themselves sound better than me," Dean snapped. "Just cuz you're a geek you think I don't know anything… Give me some credit Sammy… So what are you having, the Lamb Shoulder "Tajine" and Herb-Crusted Lamb Loin, Chick-Pea Panissa Fries, Medjol Dates Compote and Spicy Natural Jus?"

Sam frowned, "What makes you think that?"

"You won't have the steak because I'm having that… for all my teasing you don't like vegetarian meals but won't eat veal for some freaky reason… not enough meat on a duck and the rest are fish which is too fiddly in company," Dean reasoned.

"I could have the salmon," Sam argued.

"You haven't eaten salmon since you nearly got drowned fishing when you were ten… that was a real bitch that one," he mused avoiding saying too much. "Anyways while dad and I ate the fish we caught you would only eat the biscuits in our packs."

Sam looked back at him, "wasn't that the time that you nearly drowned dragging me out while dad sorted the bitch?" Sam reached out and touched Dean's shoulder, "didn't dad have to sew that up?"

"Only doing my job Sammy; protecting you," Dean replied giving Sam a glare and shrugging his shoulder until his brother removed his hand. "So am I wrong?" he asked hoping to close the subject.

Bones looked across at him, "so Sam caught a big fish and you had to save him from drowning?"

Dean looked at Sam; a question in his eyes before answering, "Yeah I suppose you could call it that."

"And what would you call it?" Hodgins asked intrigued.

Sam looked at Dean, "yeah you're right, I thought the lamb sounded safe," he answered effectively cutting off the conversation into what beast they had been fighting.

A beautiful leggy blonde walked over to the table bending low to the side of Dean, who was talking to Booth about Baltimore. "If you haven't got someone to warm your bed tonight, perhaps you'd like my number," she whispered huskily.

He turned to face her and nearly ended up with his face in her boobs before he looked up into her face. "Sorry, bit jet-lagged tonight; maybe tomorrow," he responded with the cutest of grins that had her almost cumming at the table.

Sam glared at his brother, "do you have to," he snarled as the woman walked away leaving her phone number.

Dean looked innocent and confused, "do I have to what?"

"You know," Sam waved toward where the blonde had gone.

Dean followed his brother's glare, "hey that wasn't… I was just sat here minding my own business." He looked at his brother, "you don't think she's one of our usual playmates, do you?"

Sam continued to glare as everyone else tried to understand the conversation, "no I don't… but do you have to."

Dean looked relieved, then annoyed. "Sammy just because they're interested in me doesn't mean I won't be there for you," he teased and got a shove from his brother.

Hodgins was amazed that this beautiful woman had come, propositioned Dean and he'd not taken up the offer. "So what… you're gay?" he asked.

Dean had just been about to have a drink and both he and Sam nearly choked trying not to laugh. Angela and Bones wondered what had been said.

"No, not gay but I wouldn't want to ruin my reputation when I'm not on top form. Besides half the fun is looking and chatting up, it's not the same where they ask," Dean reasoned.

They started talking again and a redhead walked passed the table and left her key next to Dean's knife. As he went to pick it up his fingers brushed the key. He called the waiter over and wrote a quick note (not tonight darling) which Sam read over his shoulder. He handed the key and the note to the waiter, "if you don't know which she is can you have the keys returned to the main desk with the note?" he asked.

Sam looked at him and put his hand on his forehead, "you feeling alright dude?"

Dean smacked his hand away and looked annoyed, "what?"

"Two in one night?" Sam asked incredulously. "Come on, when was the last time you turned down a hot girl?"

"Turned Jo down," he shrugged. "Look I'm just not in the mood tonight," he glared at Sam who backed down.

As they ate they started a general chat around the table where Bones and Dean got lost on the same part of the conversation about sport. She looked at him, "my excuse is I concentrated on education after losing my parents, what's your excuse?"

"I concentrated on the family business, chasing balls and working in large teams wasn't part of that. We were never in one place long enough to get a loyalty to one team and never had time to see games," he replied as though it didn't matter.

"You use to encourage me in school sports and to develop an interest," Sam responded.

"Yeah to make you understand about how teams worked, you were always challenging dad but in a team there's a leader you follow and if you work together you can do something special; if you don't you'll lose. It's much easier losing in sport than with our usual playmates," Dean explained. "Didn't want you getting hurt because you weren't following the rules."

Sam looked surprised.

"So how come Sam got a full ride to Stanford and you didn't?" Zack asked.

"Because he wanted it and I didn't," Dean replied.

"You've traveled over most of the country, so where're your favorite place and least favorite?" Angela asked.

Dean looked at Sam, "don't know about favorite but Hibbing, Minnesota has to be high on the least favorite."

"What happened there?" Hodgins asked thinking it would be something spooky.

Booth looked at him, "Did you meet those serial psycho killers up there?"

"Yeah," Dean replied rubbing the burn scar as he remembered his fear of losing Sam.

"I read about that," Bones interjected. "Weren't they hunting people and eating them?" she looked surprised at Angela's horror as they'd only just finished eating and were waiting for coffee.

"Yeah real crazy family," Dean replied, trying to quell the memory.

"So that's what the note meant," Booth mused.

"What note?" Dean asked.

"Chief wanted to know what you knew about the case," Booth replied. "When checking tapes they found that you had been there around the time they were discovered."

"Yeah well Kathleen helped after a bit of persuasion," Dean responded.

"What Dean is avoiding saying is they captured me and if he hadn't been so tenacious I would have been a victim and they wouldn't have been caught," Sam interrupted.

Dean looked at his brother, "if they'd harmed one hair on your head they'd have been dead," he growled.

"The old man was killed," Booth stated. "Either of you do that?"

"Dean got caught but gave me an escape. After I'd freed the cop and we'd taken down the men, she let me go and find Dean. I was untying him when we heard the shot," Sam explained.

"And she sent you away both our guys turned up," Booth grinned.

"Yeah it was a freaking long walk back to town," Dean complained. "But they had killed her brother so at least we helped her solve that."

Everyone looked somber for a while. "I love New Mexico," Angela said trying to break the mood.

As the coffee arrived Bones asked the one question Dean had been dreading, "so what about St. Louis?"

Sam looked, "I've got friends there but I wouldn't class it as a favorite place."

Dean looked at him, "I don't think that's what she's asking." He glared at her, "You can ask all the questions you want, but not here."

"And will you answer?" she asked.

"Yeah and it'll be the truth, but I don't expect you to believe a word," he finished his coffee and got up. He stalked to the lift with Sam hot on his heels.

"Calm down bro'," Sam insisted.

"I am calm," Dean snapped.

"Hey look I know you're pissed but it won't help if you get wound up."

"Why do you think I walked away, pity they don't have a punch bag here," he sighed. "I could really do with hitting something about now."

Sam held his hands up in surrender, "I know but save it for the next hunt."

"There won't be another hunt if she gets her way," Dean retorted.

"But she won't if you just calm down and think about how we're going to do this," Sam soothed as the lift doors opened and the others joined them.


	8. Chapter 8

**Characters: Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester, Temperance Brennan (Bones), Seeley Booth, others from Bones and Supernatural**

**Summary: When I saw The Usual Suspects I just saw an opening for a cross-over. **

**Spoilers: Spoiler for 2.07 The Usual Suspects. Also Skin, Something Wicked, Faith, Asylum, Dead Man's Blood and Bloodlust in this chapter.**

**Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Eric Krippe's characters from Supernatural and Fox's characters from Bones. No money being made, only my debts are my own (but you're quite welcome to those).**

**No Beta, so all the mistakes are my own.**

**Part 8**

When they entered the suite Dean went straight into his room and Sam followed him, indicating that the others should go into the lounge and help themselves to a drink or something.

Sam looked for Dean in his room and realized that the shower was on. Following the sound he found Dean still dressed hunched over the sink, his hands braced on the sink's edge and his head dropped forward.

"Hey, you ok?" he asked gently.

"Yeah… everything is just peachy," Dean retorted not moving but taking deep breaths.

"Ok, so not ok," Sam replied with a frown standing behind him and looking at their reflections in the mirror. "Gonna tell me about it so we can go back out there and face them."

"No," Dean rebuffed wishing his brother would just give him some space to calm down and work out a strategy for dealing with the bitch.

"Look they don't know what's lit your touch paper and are probably concerned about you, especially with you being so ill yesterday... I know we always say 'we do what we do and shut up about it', but we've got to give them something," his brother reasoned trying to break the older brother out of his funk. "You've been giving them all the silent treatment since we left the restaurant; let me explain the rules to them."

"No, this is all my fault, if that thing hadn't been wearing my face we wouldn't be having this discussion," Dean argued still looking at the plug hole and trying to relax.

"And if I hadn't insisted on going to St Louis in the first place then none of it would have happened," Sam countered frustrated at his brother's mood.

Dean looked up and at his brother's reflection in the mirror and smirked. "That's true," he ran his hands through his hair and turned putting his hand on his brother's shoulder, "ok Scooby let's go."

"I am not Scooby," Sam protested wondering what he had said to change Dean's mood.

"Sure you are," Dean replied ruffling his hair and getting a glare from his brother as they headed for the lounge.

"I don't know what's wrong with them," Bones complained as they went into the lounge. "One minute they're telling stories about their past, the next it's like I accused them of being psychopaths."

"Oh, maybe you asking in a public place about what happened in St Louis," Booth replied angrily remembering what it was like when he'd been a sniper. "They've probably been taught to treat what they do like black ops, you do what you do and shut up about it. If they talked about it in public people would think they were mad because those things don't really exist, and that's how you're treating them. I thought you didn't jump to conclusions but checked through the evidence."

"I don't jump to conclusions, but what they talk about is the stuff of ghost stories and horror movies. It's all fiction, and you make it sound like some secret service department," Bones laughed clearly unimpressed moving over by the window and standing by the desk.

"Except if it was a department they would get paid and live better," Hodgins observed getting some drinks for everyone from the mini bar.

"Well they started it by talking about a big fish," Bones objected, feeling uncomfortable. It wasn't like her team to take someone else's side against her; they usually worked with her to prove her point.

"Yeah, I wonder what that was all about," Hodgins mused handing round the drinks; he'd enjoyed talking with Dean, it had been fun talking to someone who actually laughed about normal things.

"You really don't want to know," Dean answered with a smirk, as he and Sam rejoined them.

"You alright?" Angela asked concern lacing her tone from her seat on one of the sofas.

Dean smirked, "I'm always alright, just sometimes need to take a bit of time to remind myself." He turned to Bones, "so you're a great anthropologist and writer of books, and yet you have pathetic timing and interview technique."

She was shocked that he was being so offensive; he hadn't struck her as being offensive before just stupid and uncouth.

"I don't know how your team put up with you," he continued standing on the opposite side of the room with his brother within arms reach. Sam grabbed his arm to warn him to stop but he shrugged him off. "I always thought scientists kept an open mind until something could be proven, but you've made up your mind without checking the facts or listening to eye-witness accounts. So everything which Sam and I might say tonight we might as well say to a brick wall, because it would be less judgmental."

Bones starred at him open mouthed; no-one had ever spoken to her like that. Her team and Booth were surprised by the ferocity of his outburst; though they were also amused.

"Hey let's calm down a bit," Booth insisted, standing midway between them but slightly to the side. He put his hands up in a calming motion at Dean.

"I am calm," he replied turning to look at Booth and winked. "Look I know you and the others are giving us the benefit, but I'm fed up with the snide remarks that she keeps making."

"Mood swings a side effect of that thing," Booth joked to Dean and Sam.

Sam grinned, "not normally, but then turning down beautiful women isn't usually something I'd associate with my brother." Sam's phone rang and he answered as Dean turned to glare at him. "Hi Ellen… no he's ok… holy water drip… bit more than usual… if you call turning down women… what Dean, never."

Dean didn't like Sam's end of the conversation and grabbed the phone, "Ellen what bullshit are you talking about… side effect, brilliant… what's that… nah just wanted to enjoy the other perks… what Sammy, you gotta be kidding… ok, get Ash to email it… we'll check later when the squint and his pals have gone." Dean walked out into the corridor where Booth and Sam could hear but not Bones and her team. "The bitch thinks we're psycho and tried to talk business in the restaurant… I'm trying… Right back at you… Thanks; see you Ellen."

"Everything ok?" Sam asked as Dean returned to the room and was giving him a strange look.

"She says I need to give you a big sloppy kiss for everything you did last night," Dean replied straight faced waiting for the reaction and approached his brother.

Sam backed off warily, "Dean I'm sure she didn't mean it… maybe it's a side effect of yesterday." He continued trying to back away steering round the furniture and the other occupants.

Dean continued to advance hoping that he could launch his attack on his brother right in front of Bones. Sam didn't let him down and when Sam was just in front of Bones, Dean leapt over a chair, crashed into his brother and pinned him to the floor. Bones moved out of the way quickly and avoided being knocked over.

As Dean's face got closer to his brother's Sam screwed his face up. Dean laughed, "I really should take a picture of that for Ellen, bitch."

Sam looked at him confused, "W-What?"

"It's amazing how quickly you lose that Stanford intelligence when you're confused. Did you really believe Ellen's talk of side effects?" Dean explained as he got off his brother and pulled him to his feet grinning.

Sam was annoyed, "you turned down two…"

"Yeah I turned down two," Dean agreed seriously. "I turned them down because I just wanted to relax and try out that list over there; can hardly bring a woman back and expect her to watch me on a Playstation or see how many channels the TV's got. Maybe tomorrow I'll find someone to test the bed and shower. You know even I need some down time after last night."

Sam looked at him and grinned, "Thought nothing stopped you."

"You want me to list the things that have stopped me, it might take a while," Dean challenged hoping Sam would take the bait, this was his way of telling about their exploits without everyone realizing.

"Ok name one," Sam replied not realizing he'd been played. Sam was just so easy to play at times.

"You shooting me in the chest with rock salt," he replied without a hint of annoyance. "It took me a fortnight for those scars to be less noticeable."

"Dean I was possessed, I couldn't help it," Sam cried exasperated thinking his brother still hadn't forgiven him.

"You'd better find a better excuse because the lady over there doesn't believe in possession, she'd think it was a repressed desire to get rid of your pain in the ass brother," Dean replied following normal logic calmly and totally in control of the situation.

"Dean you might be a pain in the ass, but if I really wanted to kill you why would I go to all that trouble to find a faith healer; when you were going to die after being electrocuted?" he retorted wondering why his brother was being such a son of a bitch.

"Oh, I don't know, maybe to prove a point after shooting me and saying you didn't mean it," Dean returned hoping his brother would catch on before getting totally pissed at him. "Anyway faith healers don't exist so how could one heal me."

Booth looked at Bones; he could tell she didn't understand what was going on. He smirked Dean was doing a good job of getting Sam to talk about their work without saying too much and making out it was rubbish. He wondered how far Dean would push his brother and whether Bones would figure it out before then. It was a good interview technique to get someone you knew to tell the truth without asking direct questions.

Angela, Zack and Hodgins were enjoying the banter and the stories that they were hearing. Bones thought that this was a very well rehearsed deception and wondered how often they had done it.

"Yeah so he wasn't really a faith healer but people were being healed and I didn't know about the flip side when I took you there," Sam sighed wishing he didn't have to revisit this for Dean's sake. He wondered why his brother was pushing him and saying that these things didn't exist, Dean was the one who knew more than he did. "I just didn't want to lose you and it was you who realized they were binding a reaper to do it; that for every miracle healing somebody else died. We didn't know until after you were healed and then we stopped it."

Dean's mask slipped and the sorrow that Layla hadn't been saved showed for a second. "Yeah you managed to sort that before the reaper came back for me," he lamented; only Sam realized why Dean was upset.

By now Sam had realized what Dean was doing and decided to help things along. "I've been there to save your life, but you've also been there for me. Do you remember when the shtringa nearly got me; you were there to kill it?"

"Which time, because I sure messed up the first time?" Dean replied remembering his dad's reaction with a frown.

"Maybe but you were only a kid; the second time you knew what to do and stopped it going after more kids," Sam insisted sensing his brother's discomfort.

Dean again looked upset at the memory. "Yeah didn't like using Michael in that; didn't want another kid to know that there really are things that go bump in the night but there really wasn't any other way."

Booth was confused, he'd never heard of a shtringa, "so what is one of those things and who's Michael."

"Michael's a kid whose brother was made ill by a shtringa; they're a sort of witch who take the life force from children… they need to feed every 15 to 20 years then disappear… one tried to take Sammy as a kid but got scared away by our dad… didn't resurface for a 17 years but when it was going through Fitchburg Wisconsin dad sent us co-ordinates," Dean sighed. "He sent us to complete the job that I'd messed up."

"Dean figured it out and we found the culprit but they can only be killed when they're feeding so we set a trap, nearly messed it up but then Dean came through," Sam acknowledged.

Bones looked at him, "I've never heard of it, you must live in a world of fantasy and fable; but none of that exists. You were going to tell the truth about what happened in St. Louis."

"Could we talk to Michael about it?" Booth asked deflecting Bones question sensing the animosity coming from Dean.

"You could but his mom doesn't know and there's no proof," Dean replied calmly, no point getting at the Agent who was more impartial. "You'd do better talking to Sam's friend from St. Louis about the shape shifter. It did nearly kill her with my face, which is why I got the blame, and later tied her up in its lair. She was also there when I shot the thing as it tried to kill Sammy." He turned to Bones, "look lady we never talk about our stuff in public, its bad enough we've been brought up knowing about it, we don't want to frighten people who can't defend themselves. If one of those people in the restaurant said they'd never seen one of the people you study and therefore they don't exist and everything you do is a big hoax; would you want to talk to people about it."

"I can prove my work, we have bones and site photographs," she argued thinking what he was saying was pointless; people wouldn't accuse her of a hoax. "And we work with the relatively recent deceased."

"You have the shape shifters remains but still you insist I must have done it. I could give you my whereabouts when the other murders took place and you could probably get some CCTV footage which would put me in those locations; but would you believe it?" he rebuffed callously.

She looked at him defiantly, "the things you talk about don't exist."

Dean looked at her with a smirk, "that Hobbit man doesn't exist, it's a hoax."

"Of course it exists, I've examined the remains and confirmed its authenticity," she replied angrily at him for dismissing the work of scientists worldwide.

"So you say, but I haven't seen it or examined it," he replied, "and so it doesn't exist, it's a figment of your imagination."

Booth stared clapping, "brilliant performance."

Bones team looked at Booth wondering what he was talking about, Sam smiled and Dean grinned, "Thanks I was beginning to think nobody would catch on, but then these people who think they're so intelligent can be so slow sometimes."

Zack looked totally confused, "what are you on about?"

Hodgins put a hand on his shoulder, "everything that Sam and Dean have talked about, they have seen but are not supposed to exist outside of myths and stories, so we don't believe them. The Hobbit is a story but remains have been found which prove the existence of something similar so scientists say it exists and everyone believes us because we are scientists. Why should people believe what we say just because we're scientists, when we don't believe them even when we've got the evidence?"

Dean had wandered over to him as he spoke and clapped a hand on his back. "My point exactly," he smiled. "Glad to find not all scientists have their head so far up their ass that they can't see what jerks they really are."

"You'll be telling me next that vampires exist," Bones challenged thinking that she'd get him on this point.

Dean grinned he hadn't expected that but it played right into his hands, "yeah they do, although I didn't believe it the first time we tackled them. They're an enigma. First nest we meet were keeping humans in a cage like chickens and we were lucky to get away. The next nest kidnapped Sam and let him go, even after I'd killed one of them, just to prove that not all vampires kill humans. They're still undead bloodsuckers but they try and live like you and get jobs, so we helped them get away from a crazy hunter."

"So how do they survive?" Zack asked. "I mean if they're not drinking human blood what do they do, raid the blood bank?"

"Animal blood," Dean replied with a grimace, "cattle mutilations."

"That's gross," Zack gagged.

"Yeah that's what Lenore said, but they want to survive without being hunted, so it's a sacrifice they are willing to make," Sam agreed wishing she'd told him where they were going.

"Lenore would be a vampire then?" Bones asked in a disbelieving tone.

"Yeah, but we don't know where they went, so we can't introduce you," Dean replied sarcastically. "It's funny she's actually got more humanity than you and she's dead."

"But there were the two decapitated bodies in the town, they'd prove that they were there," Sam suggested hopefully.

"If they haven't been cremated yet," Dean countered knowing their luck wasn't that good.

"Where was this?" Booth asked.

"Red Lodge, Montana," Dean replied with a shrug.

"Thanks," Booth replied pulling out his cell and moving to the hall.

When he came back he announced, "The remains of one female and one male decapitation victim will be sent to the Jeffersonian for examination. They should be there around lunchtime tomorrow."

"You really believe it all, don't you?" Bones sounded astounded as she confronted Booth. "You've fallen hook, line and sinker for every word."

"I believe that if the evidence supports them, we have no reason to doubt them," he rebuffed with a shrug. "You have one piece of evidence which doesn't follow normal rules; let's see if another does the same. Then we can try interviewing a few people if you're still not satisfied, although I think my boss will accept my word."

"And if I am satisfied you'll let them go to carry on their insane 'mission'," she laughed still not believing any of it.

"Hey lady, people thought Darwin was insane, now you follow his theories. So just because you think we're insane doesn't mean we're not right," Dean countered.

"Dean," Sam stared confused, "when did you learn about Darwin?"

"I don't know, doesn't everyone know about him?" Dean shrugged bored with the conversation and wanting some space from this annoying bitch. "Look if I'm going to try out room service, are you staying the night or going?" he asked everyone.

"You're right we should head out," Booth replied checking his watch. "We'll see you at the Institute tomorrow at 10am."

"Make it 2pm," Dean smirked. At the raised eyebrows he added, "I'll never fit everything in before then and we'll need lunch."

Sam glared at his brother but Dean just grinned back grabbing the room service list.

"Fine 2pm and don't be late," Booth replied with a wink wondering what delights Dean was planning on for the evening. "You should get there about the same time as those remains."

Everyone left leaving Sam and Dean to entertain themselves.

"So what have you got planned for this evening?" Sam asked annoyed at how Dean had dismissed their guests.

"Thought I'd order some real food and we could check Ash's email. Find out what Ellen was muttering about," he replied. "I want to book one of those massages for the morning and try out the pool then. For the rest of the night I was hoping you could get one of those Playstations and a game I could beat you on."

"Sometimes you really act like a big kid," Sam grinned at his brother.

"Yeah but you love me for it," Dean replied with a smirk.

Sam looked more serious, "what's this about you understanding Darwin, anyway?"

"Just because you got to go to college doesn't mean I don't know anything, just means I don't let on what I know," Dean smirked. "You need a good all round knowledge in our job, how do you think I pulled off the cons without my geek brother around?"

Sam frowned as he sat at the desk, "never thought about that."

"That's your problem Sammy, over think at the wrong time and don't think at the right time," Dean teased grabbing a chair to sit next to his brother. "You need enough knowledge to get you in the door and keep them believing but not enough to make them look dumb."

"Think you broke that rule tonight," Sam smirked, opening up the laptop. "You really went for Dr Brennan."

"Yeah well she's been on our case since the beginning not believing anything, so I just wanted to rub her nose in it for a bit."

"Do you think the vamp heads will convince her?"

"I hope something will, cuz I'd hate her wanting to come on a hunt to prove us wrong."

"You think it might come to that?"

"Agent Booth sort of believes and I don't think he'd let her, but who knows," Dean replied picking up the phone to order some food. "Have you got that email yet?" he asked ringing his order.

Tbc

A/N For your info the full phone conversation with Ellen:

Ellen: Hi Sam

Sam: Hi Ellen

Ellen: How's Dean, he any worse?

Sam: no he's ok

Ellen: How'd you treat him?

Sam: holy water drip

Ellen: Is he getting mood swings?

Sam: bit more than usual

Ellen: What about change in libido?

Sam: if you call turning down women

Ellen: Is he chasing men?

Sam: what Dean, never

Dean: Ellen what crap are you telling Sammy

Ellen: Side effect of the demon, you think you're gay

Dean: side effect, brilliant

Ellen: Yeah thought you'd like that

Dean: what's that?

Ellen: Sam said you turned down some women

Dean: nah just wanted to enjoy the other perks

Ellen: With Sam, there's not another reason

Dean: what Sammy, you gotta be kidding

Ellen: Ash found some info, said you might continue to be attracted to whoever you were with when it hit

Dean: ok, get Ash to email it

Ellen: Ok I'll do that, but you be careful

Dean: we'll check later when the squint and his pals have gone.

Ellen: How you getting on with Dr. Brennan?

Dean: The bitch thinks we're psycho and tried to talk in the restaurant

Ellen: You be careful how much you say boy

Dean: I'm trying

Ellen: Very (she laughs)

Dean: right back at you

Ellen: Yeah you two be careful, you want back up, we'll find it for you

Dean: Thanks... See you Ellen.


	9. Chapter 9

**Characters: Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester, Temperance Brennan (Bones), Seeley Booth, others from Bones and Supernatural**

**Summary: When I saw The Usual Suspects I just saw an opening for a cross-over. **

**Spoilers: Huge spoiler for 2.07 The Usual Suspects.**

**Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Eric Krippe's characters from Supernatural and Fox's characters from Bones. No money being made, only my debts are my own (but you're quite welcome to those).**

**No Beta, so all the mistakes are my own.**

**Part 9**

The next morning found Dean and Sam in the pool racing to do 100 lengths; they followed this with an hour trying out the fitness suite. They confounded the trainers with their ability to do the harder exercises when Dean had never used a machine before; Sam had tried them at Stanford but preferred doing his own thing. Dean decided they were too easy and went to get a massage before returning to their room for lunch.

Sam skipped the massage in favor of checking email and doing some research. They would need to have a new job lined up for when they were free to leave.

"Man that was so good," Dean sighed returning to their room. "You really missed out."

Sam looked up from the laptop and smirked at his brother, "I think I'll pass... I thought you didn't like all that girly crap?"

Dean blew out a short whistle, "the girl doing the massage was really hot… I got her number for later," he pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket, "said I might like a private session in my suite later."

"Dean you are so…"

"So what? She knows we're only here a few days," Dean complained with a frown. "She was up for helping us with the room service list and servicing in the room!" he added raising his eyebrow in a 'you know what I mean' look. "Talking of room service, did you call them about doing our laundry?"

"Dean I am not going to send our blood and guts covered clothes to the hotel laundry."

"Wuss… tell me you ordered lunch?"

"I was waiting for you to come back," Sam confessed with a grimace knowing Dean's reaction before it occurred.

"As I said wuss," Dean replied picking up the phone and ringing for room service. "Room 507, I'd like to order steak lunch for two at noon… yeah I know my brother was going to order," he glared at Sam. "Yeah the charcoal-grilled with seasonal veg and fries… yeah… oh and the chocolate mousse to follow…That's fine, thanks… Yeah we need some laundry done… right thanks… ok." He put down the phone and turned to his brother, "Right lunch will be here at noon and they're coming to pick up the laundry so get yours ready."

"Dean they're likely to call the cops when they see our laundry," Sam complained still sat at the computer; there were a few news windows open on the screen.

"Dude lighten up, the FBI are paying for us to stay here; they're not likely to arrest us when we're in protective custody," Dean reasoned as he went to get changed. "Know something; this is the best holiday I've ever had," he grinned back at his brother.

"Dean I hate to burst your bubble but this isn't a holiday; this is about getting you off the FBI's most wanted list," Sam replied seriously, worried about his brother's sanity.

"Yeah there's that but I've never stayed anywhere like this without worrying about the job, the next job or whether the credit card will bounce before we get out. Here, there's no worries. You know that was the first decent night's sleep I've had since I don't know when; then we had a nice relaxing swim, played on those fitness machines and topped it off with a massage. And the best thing, it's all paid for!" he grinned ducking into his room.

"Ok but you were still a real bitch to Dr Brennan last night and she still holds the key to sorting out St Louis," Sam argued half-heartedly, he hadn't seen Dean so Dean-like since before Salvation and he didn't want to upset that yet.

"You're right," Dean mused deciding what to wear. "So I'll turn on the charm and take her a piece offering."

At the Jeffersonian the team were waiting for Bones arrival and discussing the night before. They were drinking coffee in the lounge area.

"Could you believe the way that Dean Winchester went for Dr Brennan when we returned to their suite?" Zack asked as he sat down clearly annoyed that anyone would speak like that around his mentor.

Hodgins smiled over his coffee as he sat down opposite, "yeah that was really cool the way he launched his attack on Sam right next to her."

"I think he was really upset when we went back to their suite," Angela commented looking sad, her empathy showing through.

"Hardly surprising," Hodgins returned enthused from his conversation with Dean the previous evening, "from what I gathered he takes his work seriously and doesn't talk about it, then she asks straight out about St Louis… whoa way to get information."

"But they were talking about something strange before," Zack countered defending Bones.

"Yeah but they were using a code that wouldn't make people think they were mad," Hodgins replied understanding Zack's need to defend Bones but feeling Dean needed someone to stand up for him in this company. "I'd love to know what that big fish really was though," he smirked.

"But the way he pushed Sam, that was mean," Angela complained feeling sorry for the younger brother who seemed to miss out on so much and was really quite a nice guy… too young but nice.

"Yeah but if they'd just said all that stuff in conversation would you have believed any of it?" Hodgins smirked. They shook their heads, "getting Sam to try and justify what had happened, did you believe?"

Angela looked at him surprised at his insight, "yeah but they didn't have time to rehearse all that and Sam looked shocked about what Dean was doing."

"You mean it was all a lie to get us to believe their story about St Louis?" Zack asked still believing the worse of Dean.

"No that was the beauty of it," Hodgins enthused with a grin. "Dean is used to getting people to talk to find out what he needs to know, so he turned it on Sam who wasn't prepared and answered honestly trying to calm Dean. What Sam didn't realize was that Dean was calm but playing him."

"Until Sam hit on something that upset Dean, then he realized and continued to help his brother out," Booth completed as he and Bones joined them. "So you think they were telling the truth?"

"I have photographic evidence that they weren't in St. Louis when most of the murders were committed and they were together when the only one happened when they were in town. The report blaming Dean was by someone who survived before she knew the truth," Hodgins explained. "So yes I'd say they were telling the truth."

"I won't ask how you got the photos," Booth responded officially but ruined the effect when he smirked at Hodgins discomfort.

"Ok, so we go through the evidence one more time looking at the less obvious, the things that other investigators would miss and then present our conclusions," Bones instructed as she joined her team with a coffee. "We meet in Angela's room at eleven for final presentations before lunch."

As the other's left Booth pulled Bones back, "you still don't believe them, do you?"

"Actually I went over everything that was said last night and I'm willing to put aside my skepticism until we reach a conclusion," she replied. "But whatever you're planning next I want in on it."

He feigned innocence with a shrug, "I don't know what you mean?"

"You've either got a job for them or you want their help," she responded. "Anything involving them I want to work with the remains and in the field."

Booth looked concerned, "if this is for real then I won't be joining them in the field, and there's no way I'd let you; but the remains will be yours. They'll make you a believer yet!"

Bones gave him a disbelieving look before heading to the lab.

Dean and Sam sauntered in as the others were just finishing their lunch.

"Did you miss us?" Dean asked with a grin spreading his arms out palms up, totally relaxed in his suit pants, green shirt and leather jacket.

"And why would we do that?" Bones asked rhetorically as she got up, already irritated by his presence. She didn't know why but she felt threatened by his presence, it left her feeling like the stability of her world was about to crumble. Not her emotions, no, those were protected; but the foundations that made her world feel safe.

Dean put his arm around her and replied, "And I thought we got on so well last night, you with your ice maiden image… and me… well just me being me," he smirked. Sam, who had put on a suit to blend in, rolled his eyes and shrugged to the others.

She shrugged him off, "you had obviously had too much to drink if you think that I could be friends with someone like you."

"I thought you might say that," he shrugged, "which is a pity because I was going to give you these as a token of my belief in your fair and honest treatment of every case," and with a flourish he retrieved a spray of orchids from under his jacket. "But since you don't want them I shall have to give them to the beautiful Angela who has made our visit so pleasant," he turned and gave the flowers to the other woman.

Angela blushed, "I don't know what to say." Bones looked at the flowers and couldn't believe this was the same son of a bitch from last night; did he really intend them for her or was he playing her again; he could be so damn annoying.

"Then don't say anything," Dean grinned coming down from his high.

Booth looked at him, "have you been drinking?"

Dean looked offended. "Nah, too early in the day, besides we're on a job so wouldn't want to cloud my judgment," he replied with a smirk. "Nothing like a swim and workout wake you up though," he added in his normal tone.

Booth and Bones both raised an eyebrow. "You mean this is all because you had a workout?" Booth asked in total shock.

Sam looked at his brother in disbelief, "dude what have you done with my brother."

Dean ignored his brother and answered Booth's question. "Not entirely, I had a massage from a really hot babe after and got fixed up for later, so…" he started.

"And I thought the flowers meant you'd be taking me out," Angela interrupted with a shy smile.

Dean looked at Hodgins before looking at her, "I would but I think someone else has a prior claim and I don't want to mess with a team I might want some help from in the future." He winked at Hodgins.

"So you weren't chatting me up?" Bones asked, suddenly disappointed.

"My brother told me we were the perfect match… before I clocked him one… but I'm not the settling sort and we'd fight too much," he teased, knowing that he had no intention of getting mixed up with this older woman. "I actually came with a peace offering because we're both so committed to our work that we sometimes forget that other people can't understand what we do," he concluded. "Just sorry you didn't want to accept it."

"Oh! I guess I should be sorry," she responded suitably humbled.

"Not if you're not sorry," he replied honestly; then getting down to business, "I thought we were here to hear your verdict on St Louis."

"In a little while but first we wanted to look at those remains from Red Lodge," Booth interjected.

They made their way to the lab platform where two decapitated bodies lay on the work tables.

Bones led the way to the head of a young woman. "We can't see any extra long teeth and I thought vampires were supposed to have fangs to drink blood," she commented sarcastically looking at Dean.

He grabbed a pair of gloves and put them on as she was talking. "That's the great thing about myths and legends," he replied as if talking to an idiot. "Most people take them literally but really they're the starting point in understanding the creatures they depict." Moving to the opposite side of the head, "do you mind?" he gestured to the head.

"If you're so sure, be my guest," she shrugged expecting him to be wrong.

Dean carefully opened the mouth and pulled up the top lip. "Can you see the raised bits in the gums?" he asked her.

She looked closely surprised that there seemed to be something there. "There seems to be something under the surface."

"Yeah well don't put your finger in there," he instructed as he pushed on the top of the fang and it descended.

She jumped as the fang descended and then looked carefully, "what is that?"

"One of a set of retractable fangs," he replied matter-of-factly, not reacting to her jump. "If you didn't know what you were looking for you'd miss them. Most coroners would never think to look at the gum line for anything different and being decapitated would be a sort of give away on how they died."

Bones looked at him incredulous, "so you're telling me this is a vampire which has been living and feeding here without anyone knowing… How many people have died because of it?"

Dean gave a wry grin, "well if Lenore was telling the truth, none." He glanced at his brother.

"When we heard of more than one person being decapitated in Red Lodge and cattle mutilations we went to investigate," Sam opened up. "We found out they were vamps and met the hunter who was killing them. After Dean saved his ass the vamps kidnapped me… to try and get the hunters off their trail... After Lenore proved to Dean's satisfaction that they didn't take human blood we helped her and her friends get away."

"So you don't just kill them all?" Booth asked surprised, he'd never really thought about vampires being real but any stories always had them as murderers.

Dean shrugged, "used to but Lenore sort of jacked things up for us. Now we try to remember if it isn't killing then we leave it alone."

"And here I was thinking you were a blood thirsty killer no better than the vampires and you tell me you've got scruples," Booth jested with a wry grin.

"What can I say I surprise myself sometimes," Dean grinned moving away from the table so the other scientists could have a look.

Bones was still looking at the head, "so what else do you know about these things?" she glanced up at him.

"Only what the legends say, they're fast and strong… have to behead them to kill them… our only interest is what they're doing and how to kill them. If they're killing people we kill them. We don't want to talk politics or the price of corn with them," Dean replied with a shrug.

Sam smiled, "Dean's all about getting the job done and getting out of town before anyone notices we're there."

Dean frowned, then grinned, "yeah well it usually serves us well."

Bones looked around at her team, "I want everybody working on these bodies to find out everything we can about them and what they've been surviving on."

"Look that might be real fun for you but I thought you were going to give us the conclusions of your investigation of the St. Louis case," Dean interrupted. "I mean if we've got to go on the run again I'd like to know sooner than later."

Bones smiled her enigmatic smile and looked at him, "but surely it'd be better for us to keep you here until backup can arrive for Booth."

Dean turned to Sam, "mood killed, let's go." He turned to move out and Booth blocked his way.

"Aren't you being a bit hasty?" Booth asked keeping an eye on both of the Winchesters; he already knew what the conclusions were but wanted to keep the Winchesters around a bit longer.

"Maybe but I have an allergy to prisons," Dean retorted while assessing his escape options.

Bones realized that Dean was acting like a trapped animal and would be assessing his options of getting out safely; her first concern was the safety of her colleagues if he tried anything. "Fine we'll do the conclusions first," she grudgingly agreed to defuse the situation, "in Angela's room in five minutes."

"What changed your mind?" Sam asked confused as Angela and Hodgins disappeared to get things ready.

"I didn't want your brother tearing the place up to get out," she replied glancing at his now calm brother.

Dean grinned still planning an escape route if necessary. "I think we'd get out without doing that," he countered.

"Maybe but it wasn't worth the risk," she conceded leading the way to the lounge so they could get some coffee before continuing.

When Dean and Sam entered Angela's lab with Booth and Bones they were surprised to see the image of the shape shifter's head on display showing all the different people it had copied.

Booth noticed the look between the brothers. "This investigation was started on two counts. First that Dean Winchester had been identified as a serial killer in St Louis and had been arrested in Baltimore several months after his supposed death. Secondly that Dean Winchester alleged that he was not the serial killer, but that the serial killer looked like him," he started officially. "With that information the FBI wanted to arrest Dean Winchester and charge him with murder, but it landed on my desk so I opened the investigation with my colleagues here to find out who had been buried."

Bones took over, "we had the remains exhumed and brought to the lab, along with any other evidence collected at the time. Then Zack and Hodgins went to re-examine the crime scene for further evidence."

"She means the lair of the killer," Hodgins interrupted, Bones gave him a scathing look.

"The problem for me with this case was your insistence that it was a shape shifter that had been committing the murders," Bones told Dean. "If you'd said it was a case of mistaken identity because you weren't in town on the dates of the murders, then I might have believed you." She turned to Hodgins, "Would you like to continue with your findings from the 'lair'?"

"The most interesting thing about the evidence from the lair was that all DNA pointed to the same 'person' being responsible for all the murders, but there seemed to be many different fingerprints," Hodgins started with obvious enthusiasm. "The DNA its self was unusual because it didn't seem to be fully human, but that was dismissed until Angela reconstructed the head. There was a substance at the lair which seemed unusual and was brought back for analysis; this seems to be like the skin a reptile sheds."

"So you're saying a shape shifter is a type of human/reptile hybrid?" Sam asked clearly interested in the technical details.

"Not exactly," Bones replied with a frown. "We've been trying to find a link but can't find one."

"So what you're saying is; you know it wasn't me?" Dean asked, not really interested in the science just how it affected him.

"Yes, we know it wasn't you," Booth replied allowing Dean to relax.

"So we're free to leave?" Dean pushed ready to get back on the road and away from the nightmare of being stuck with these geeks… ok Booth and Hodgins were ok to talk to… and Angela was hot… but sooo not his scene.

"Not yet," Booth responded and carried on over Dean's protest. "The conclusions will need to be presented to my boss in the morning, then your records will need to be corrected as well as those of the St. Louis murder file. Everything should be sorted in about a week and then you'll be free to continue with whatever you do."

Dean looked disappointed, "you mean we've got to stick around for a week." Glancing at Angela and Hodgins he quickly added, "no offence but this isn't our thing."

"No offence taken," Hodgins replied. "But before you go will you tell us more about that fish that nearly drowned you and your brother?"

Dean grinned, "Maybe." Turning to Bones, "so what convinced you?"

"Apart from the body that had DNA that exactly matched DNA found at each crime scene… which yours didn't… Hodgins found photographic evidence that put you elsewhere for every murder," she replied.

"What sort of evidence?" Dean asked intrigued, turning back to Hodgins.

"Video surveillance cameras," Hodgins replied smugly.

"You can get access to those?" Sam asked with a frown.

"Friends of the family can… I just supplied them with three photos and some dates," Hodgins admitted.

"Cool, so next time Sam gets himself kidnapped you could get me the info to find him," Dean suggested, quickly thinking of all the possibilities that having Hodgins as a contact could open up.

"I had to pull a lot of favors to get them to do this; I don't think I'll be able to do it for a while," Hodgins replied, realizing where this could lead if he didn't put a dampener on it now.

"Did you have the video surveillance from the actual murders?" Sam asked, wondering if they'd noticed the eyes of the shape shifter.

"Yeah; why," asked Booth confused by the question.

"Just thought you'd like to know why we thought it was our sort of thing," he replied nonchalantly.

Angela was busy sorting the video evidence to find the clip from Rebecca's brother. "Is this what you want?" she asked starting the clip.

Sam watched as it played, "yeah… stop just there," he instructed.

"So what are we looking at?" asked Bones not comprehending the subtle problem.

"The eyes are reflecting light like a dog or cat," he explained simply, "human eyes don't."

Bones shrugged deciding that it would be in their interests to check this out, "Zack when we've finished can you dissect one of the eyes, see if we can find out more about this creature."

"It seems to be something that a lot of Supernatural being have in common; you'll find the same thing with the vamps," Dean stated, not sure why it was important to the scientists, who would never have to face these things.

"Since you're stuck here, do you want to fill us in on what you know about them?" Bones asked, "It might help us."

Dean wasn't sure about the turn of events, "nah, I'll leave that to Sammy; he's more of a research student." Sam glared at his brother's latest put down.

"Could we borrow your office?" Booth asked Bones. "I want to discuss a problem with Dean and Sam."

"Zack if you check that eye, Jack could you get one of the bodies ready for Zack; if anyone needs me I'll be in my office with Booth, Sam and Dean," she instructed turning to follow Booth to her office.

Booth looked at her, "I thought I said I needed to talk to them?"

She smirked, "you did, but we agreed I'd be involved."

Dean looked confused at Sam, he returned the look. "What do you mean you want to be involved? And what are you going to be involved in?" Dean asked concerned that something had been decided in his absence that he wouldn't like.

Booth shot Bones a silencing look, "you'll find out later," he replied.

Tbc


	10. Chapter 10

**Characters: Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester, Temperance Brennan (Bones), Seeley Booth, others from Bones and Supernatural**

**Summary: When I saw The Usual Suspects I just saw an opening for a cross-over. **

**Spoilers: Huge spoiler for 2.07 The Usual Suspects.**

**Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Eric Krippe's characters from Supernatural and Fox's characters from Bones. No money being made, only my debts are my own (but you're quite welcome to those).**

**No Beta, so all the mistakes are my own.**

**Part 10**

Not wasting any time Dean waded straight in as soon as the office door closed. "So what is it you want to talk about?" he challenged Booth calmly as he followed them over to the desk.

Booth smirked at Bones as he made his way round the desk, "sure you don't want to take a seat first?" he asked with a tilt of his head and a gesture to the chairs.

Dean bristled but Sam grabbed his arm in warning. "That's sounds like a good idea," Sam replied trying to keep his brother calm while maneuvering him to a seat opposite Booth and Bones.

Dean glared at his brother before taking a seat and turning back to Booth. "I repeat what's this all about?"

Booth produced ten manila folders and put them on the desk in front of Dean as he and Bones took seats opposite the Winchesters. "These are case files that the FBI can't fathom… some seem to have stopped… some are continuing… some we just don't know. What these cases have in common is that they appear to be serial whatever and we're at a loss. What I was hoping is that you could look at them and see if anything is up your street," Booth explained resting his arms on the table and bridging his fingers together looking intently at Dean for his reaction.

Dean relaxed a bit as he and Sam started pulling the folders over and looking at the names on the files with a quiet intensity.

"Are these victim's names or what?" Dean asked all business-like opening one file and glancing through the contents.

"Some are victims, some are places," Booth replied continuing to study both of their expressions intently. Bones had opened one and was surprised by what it contained; she quickly returned it to the pile.

Dean pulled another one out, looked through and passed it to Sam, "isn't that the one in New York with the painting?" When Sam didn't instantly reply he added, "You remember where you met that chick Sarah… she was hot and got real spunk," he whistled and winked at his brother.

Sam blushed then smirked as he checked the contents, "yeah the girl in the painting… where you burned the doll."

"That's the one… she was a vicious little bitch," Dean agreed as they looked at one another.

"So you're saying that case is closed?" Booth asked hopefully, taking the folder back, and the boys nodded. "So what was it?"

"Ghost of the little girl in the painting," Sam explained. "She'd killed her own parents and then been adopted by a new family. She killed the family and managed to place the blame on the father, but through the family portrait she killed people who bought the painting. We tried to destroy the painting."

"But because her power was elsewhere it didn't work and we had to track the cursed object down to the family tomb. I burnt the doll and the girl disappeared," Dean finished still looking at another folder but looking up from time to time. "Everyone thought it was the father until we figured that some of the things in the picture were different from the original and he was pointing to her."

"So how many of these cases have been taken care of and how many are still out there?" Booth asked wondering how you killed things that shouldn't exist.

Dean shrugged, "don't know… we can tell you the ones we've taken care of… even find out about some of the others… but just like the police in St Louis didn't know I was alive until the Baltimore police asked… so hunters don't usually broadcast a kill… and some of these things go to ground for years before they start hunting again."

Booth looked disappointed, "is there any way of finding out?"

"We can check against dad's journal," Dean suggested pulling it out of his jacket. "Maybe ask a few friends."

Sam looked with his brother with a sly grin, "come on… we can work it a bit better than that," he rebuffed. Turning to Booth, "what you want is a database of all hunter kills cross-referenced to type, location and kill method by date," he suggested in geek talk.

Dean's jaw dropped and he turned to his brother, "geek-boy how long do you think that will take you?"

"Is it even possible?" asked Booth dumbfounded at the suggestion but thinking of the possibilities.

"I think we know someone who's already started one," Sam replied with a grin at Dean, who eyed him sideways with disbelief.

Dean turned to look at his brother and frowned, "Ash?"

Sam grinned at his brother, "yeah, Dr Badass himself. We were talking about tracking the increased incidents and decided that it would be useful to be able to back track. He thought about doing a database of incidents and then putting a closing date on each with the hunter's initials. I don't know how far he's got… he was starting with recent ones and working back… but I left him details of ours and dad's."

"Is there a prize for most kills at the end of the year?" Dean asked flippantly continuing to look through the files and compare with dates in their dad's journal.

"So we could cross-check FBI files with this database," Booth smirked happily thinking of all the cases he could get to write closed on, even if he wasn't sure how they would be explained without him being dubbed Mulder.

"Er… no… one because it isn't complete… and two I don't think Ash would trust the FBI with the info," Sam replied writing a note in one folder and sliding it to his brother.

"And three, I'm not sitting around looking at files for the next six months," Dean complained looking at the file Sam had passed him and flicking pages in the journal. Then pushing three back to Booth, "those three have been taken care of; black dog in two years ago in Michigan, wendigo in Colorado back last year and ghost in Philly couple of weeks ago."

"You sure," Bones asked wondering what fantasy creature they would blame next; then she thought about the remains in the lab which proved they weren't completely insane, "I mean we started with shape shifters and vampires, now you've got more legends come to life. You sound deluded."

Dean shrugged leaning back in his seat, "I should be sure dad and I took care of the black dog when Sam was at Stanford. The wendigo was Sam's first job back on the road and we nearly lost a friend to the ghost a couple of months ago."

Sam grinned at his brother, "yeah Ellen was really pissed at you for that. She really turned the journey ice cold back to her place."

"Stupid, dumb kid playing at hunter," Dean groused staring past Booth and frowning at how Jo had nearly gotten herself killed, and how he'd taken the blame.

"Yeah but she sure had the hots for you," Sam smirked ignoring Booth and Bones.

"That's a given but you don't get reckless on a hunt," Dean admonished turning to stare at his brother. "Ellen would have killed us both if Jo had gotten herself killed."

"Hey it wasn't me who let her tag along," Sam complained feeling uncomfortable under his brother's gaze.

"Do I take it you let a woman join you on a hunt?" Bones asked raising an eyebrow to Dean.

"Not so much let," Dean objected tired of this conversation. "More tried to stop her getting herself killed because she wasn't going to go home, but she wouldn't do as she was told and got herself caught."

"But you got her out alright?" Bones asked worried.

"Of course but not without her mum blaming Dean for it," Sam sounded offended at Bones reaction, forgetting the final outcome of that saga. "Look, give us an hour and we'll tell you which are closed and our closest guess about what's causing the others."

"Guess, that doesn't sound like you know what you're doing," Bones commented, preferring facts to guesses.

"Look lady, some of these things have similar mo's and others try to hide by pretending to be something else; until we get more information it's sometimes difficult to say with certainty," Dean rebuked.

"Ok you've got an hour," Booth agreed as he got up. "I'll call the office and I'm sure Bones has some lab work to do," he motioned her to leave them to whatever they did.

As soon as they left the room Bones turned to Booth, "do you really think it was a good idea to leave them with those files?"

Booth smirked as he turned to her, "do you think I'd leave them with anything sensitive?"

"But they're unsolved cases. Aren't you just giving them ideas?" she frowned as they walked towards the main lab.

"Not really. Last night when you were being your usual skeptical self, I was listening to what they were saying and some of the things struck a chord with some cases so I grabbed the files," he shrugged, "then added a couple of more recent ones."

"So you expect them to identify them all as case files for ones they've already solved?" Bones asked confused.

"No, but I hope they will close at least eight of them," he replied as he took out his cell to ring his office.

As soon as they were alone Dean got up and stretched, "Typical FBI wants us to close their cases to get off our backs," he groused. "It's bad enough that they get in the way when we're trying to solve cases that they haven't got a clue about."

Sam looked up from the folder he was examining, "Hey at least doing this you should get off their radar for a while… could be worse."

Dean did a sideways glance at his brother, "Maybe… What was all that stuff about a database... and why were you telling them?"

"Ash and I discussed on our last visit to the Road House as a way of seeing how bad things were getting," Sam shrugged. "When we were at Bobby's he said possessions were on the increase, we thought it'd good to know what else was happening."

"And?" his brother pushed.

"And I thought if we showed that we were more organized that we could get more of their trust," Sam replied innocently.

Dean rounded on his brother, "We don't need their trust; we just need to get out of here without more charges."

"Dean if we play this right we could get all the charges dropped and official backing," Sam replied surprised that his brother hadn't worked it out. "This is the tip of their unsolved cases that have been solved by hunters… If we can close some cases maybe we can get more than just a few charges dropped… Maybe we could get a legit tag for ids and credit cards… Maybe we could find out if Ash or Bobby is on their database and get them removed."

Dean was listening to his brother and working through the possibilities. "Ok we see what their offering, but if we don't like it we get out…I'll call Bobby and Ellen. You can talk to Ash," he finished getting out his cell phone.

An hour later Booth and Bones returned to her office to find Sam and Dean still making notes. Dean was talking to someone on his cell while continuing to compare a file with their dad's journal. Sam was typing on his laptop and looking at another file.

Booth walked in rubbing his hands together in anticipation, "so boys what have you got for me?"

"Those over there are closed… some us… some other hunters," Dean replied unemotionally. "These two we can't find any reason to think they're closed. Sam's checking out that one against known mo's… I got this one… seems dad had caught its scent but never got to it… got Ash chasing some things for me and should be able to take it on."

"Why are we going to do that one, again?" Sam complained from behind his laptop.

"Its closer," Dean replied to Sam's glare. Turning back to Booth, "anyways we should be able to go after it as soon as you cut us loose, which I believe was the reason for this exercise."

Booth congratulated himself on a job well done, "so you think they might be your type of thing?"

"Might be," Dean hedged not willing to give too much away too soon, "what's in it for us… if we take them on?"

"Do you think you're in a position to negotiate?" Booth asked knowing that the Chief had given him some leeway on perks.

"Well you wouldn't show us these if you didn't want something from us," Dean smirked, "and if you want us to do something for you," his smirk got wider, "then there's always room for negotiation."

Booth raised an eyebrow, these boys were smart, and he'd give them that. "If you can solve these then we get all charges dismissed; so far you've only lost the ones on the cases you've identified."

Dean looked at Sam to continue; after all Sam had done some law school. "Are you expecting us to solve your cases and not expect something in return?" Sam posed but continued before Booth had time to reply, "At the very least we'd expect an expense account for FBI cases and legit id's."

"And at the most?" Booth asked amused by their stance.

"All previous charges dropped on revealing what we were doing… just so you know it was in the line of our job," Sam started, Dean frowned at him. "Any weapons we may carry to be considered licensed and paperwork to prove it. Our friends to remain under the prosecution radar for their hunt based activities and their properties considered safe houses… There may be others that we think of when we have time to talk alone."

Booth whistled, "Impressive list; I'd have to check it out with the boss, but the credit card fraud might be a problem and we will need to know who these friends are."

"I'm sure your bosses can convince the credit card companies that this was a public service to discover how easy it was to defraud them," Sam smirked. "As for our friends; there're a few places and a few more people but we'd need assurances before putting those people in danger. The list may change as we meet people who need protecting in our fight."

"So would you put Lenore and her friends on that list?" Bones asked puzzled by who they thought of as friends.

Sam looked at Dean, who looked surprised before offering a slight nod. "If we knew where she was then yes, so long as they don't start killing people," Sam replied.

"Anything else?" Booth smirked.

Dean pondered before adding, "It would be useful to have a fully paid up health insurance, even when we're not covering your cases."

"I'll meet you up at 10am tomorrow at FBI headquarters and you'll get to talk to the boss," Booth instructed. "So you'd better decide if you want anything else before then and leave the files on the desk when you leave."

"No problem," Dean replied getting up and pocketing their journal, "we've got all the notes we need, right Sam."

Sam closed the laptop, "Yeah… and more than we usually have on a case… though it'd be nice to look at any evidence that you have stashed away."

After The Winchesters had left Bones was appraising Booth.

He turned on her, "What?"

She shook her head, "Nothing?"

"Come on it's never nothing," he pleaded. "You don't do that look for nothing."

"It's just… you just let them make all those demands and never stopped them," she replied with a frown. "It was almost like you were expecting them."

He smirked, "Of course I was expecting them… I'd already worked out most of the requests before I brought the files here."

"So what weren't you counting on?"

"Wanting the Vampires protected," he admitted. "I thought they'd want to protect their sources, but I don't think anyone had thought about the vampires before you brought them into the equation."

"Yeah I could see that," she agreed with a nod, "but if they're really peace loving then it would be a pity to allow their extinction."

"And you'd like to study them?" Booth grinned.

She returned the grin as they went back to work, "But of course."

As they walked back to the Impala, Sam asked, "So what have you got planned for tonight?"

Dean looked at him, "I think we need to sort out some strategy on those cases and get in touch with Ash, Ellen and Bobby. We need to let them know about the deal we're trying to cut."

"What about Missouri?" Sam queried as he got settled in the passenger seat.

"She likes you," Dean replied uncomfortably, "so you get to talk to her."

Sam grinned, "I thought Dean Winchester wasn't frightened of anything… now I find he's scared of older women."

Dean frowned starting the car, "I'm not scared… just… delegating certain tasks to you."

"You are so scared," Sam laughed.

"Shut-up," Dean grumbled as he pulled on to the highway. "When we've done that I'm going to have a bit of fun with Jackie before we walk into the lion's den tomorrow… cuz I don't think we'll have much chance after."

"And I'm supposed to do what… while you're banging the masseuse?" Sam complained glaring at his brother.

"Find your own sexy lady… carry on researching… get drunk… watch porn… I don't know… just chill out for a bit," Dean replied. "You do know how to chill out… don't you Sam?" he teased.

Sam elbowed him in the ribs and Dean laughed.

After spending another night in their luxury suite Dean and Sam arrived at FBI headquarters for a morning meeting with Booth, Bones and the Chief. The lobby was large with several people milling around, there was a guard screening everyone who was going further into the building and a large reception desk where everyone seemed to go before the guard would let them through.

Dean strolled up to the desk with his brother sauntering behind taking a good look at the layout. "Good morning," he grinned to the man behind the desk, "Dean and Sam Winchester, we've come to…"

"So you're Dean and Sam Winchester… got a whole lot of cages rattled here," the man replied before Dean had a chance to finish.

Dean smirked as Sam rolled his eyes, "What can I say, obviously our reputation precedes us."

"Yeah well you see that Agent over there?" the man pointed out a gruff looking man drinking coffee across the lobby.

"Yeah… so, what's he to me?" Dean asked shaking his head.

"You messed up his case in Jericho and called him and his partner Mulder and Scully… they were not amused."

Dean shrugged and grimaced trying not to look at the man, Sam smirked at his brother's discomfort.

"So you better make sure you stick close to your escort because there's several more got a grudge against you," the man continued as Booth appeared.

"Not bad, I thought you'd keep us waiting," Booth remarked as he joined them, the other Agent walked over.

"You'd better keep an eye on them, dangerous place this for criminals," the Agent threatened looking menacingly at Dean.

Booth smirked at the Agent, "back off Gerry these guys are our guests."

"Yeah well there'll be a few guys looking for them when they come out," the Agent replied angrily.

"There's a department meeting at eleven that you'd better attend," Booth responded before turning to Dean and Sam. "Chief's waiting for you so we'd best go," he instructed as he led them to the guard.

Sam stepped through easily but Dean had to relinquish both a gun and knife before he could pass. Sam looked annoyed, "I told you not to come packing."

Dean grinned sheepishly, "Sorry… force of habit." Turning to Booth, "I will get them back, won't I?"

Booth took possession of the weapons and slid them into his pockets, "only if you behave… What's in the gun anyway?"

"Silver bullets," Dean shrugged. "You can never be too careful."

After they left the lobby Dean was busy mentally mapping the building in case they needed to escape, leaving Sam to converse with Booth.

When they entered the office Booth's boss stepped forward to shake their hands. "Seeley has told me a lot about you boys. Don't know how much I believe… but if cases can be closed then I'm happy."

"Thank you sir," Dean replied shaking his hand and taking a look around the office. He was surprised to see Bones sat in the office.

The Chief saw Dean glance at Bones, "yeah have something in common, she's not FBI but helps us solve cases. Seeley and I hope we can persuade you to do the same."

"We have some conditions on that," Sam replied shaking his hand before sitting down.

"Yeah Seeley mentioned that you were trying to negotiate some things," the Chief smiled. "Why don't we start by going through some of those cases you said were closed? Seeley has tried to explain that some of those cases are what the public call X-files."

"Yeah I'm sure Gerry won't believe your explanation about what happened in Jericho?" Booth asked.

"Classic woman in white," Sam replied. "Here we copied the details from our journal for those eight cases," he continued handing out files to the Chief, Booth and Bones. "We thought you might want hard copy of our evidence and our solution."

"And I thought you were making all that noise just to annoy me," Dean quipped and shrugged.

Sam rolled his eyes, "Just because you thought banging the masseuse was a good use of our time, didn't mean I had to enjoy listening."

Dean grinned, biting back a come back. Bones rolled her eyes but Booth just smirked at the antics.

"So these were all your cases?" the Chief asked.

"Either ours or our dad's," Dean replied.

"I thought you said that some weren't yours?" Bones interrupted.

Dean re-iterated, "They weren't they were dads, when we were doing something else."

Bones rolled her eyes. "That's hair splitting," she complained.

Dean shrugged, "Look things have been getting more hectic so we've been covering more jobs, used to be one a month now it's more like two or three a month that we find. Sam and I can just about cover two a month with the research, traveling and getting the job done, dad used to send us some that he couldn't cover. I wouldn't want to take credit for his work."

The Chief raised his eyebrows, "So you're saying that these types of cases are on the increase?"

Sam responded, "A friend of ours says there's been a rise in the number of possessions; as for the other stuff it might be increasing or we're getting better at recognizing it."

"Either way it means more work and more chances of getting caught by you guys," Dean added, "no offence."

Booth and the Chief smiled. "None taken," the Chief replied. "So Booth tells me the St Louis case was a 'shape shifter' and we've got its remains. All we've got to do is rebury it with a new identity to close the case. But that leaves us with the problem of how we deal with your other crimes. Explain why we have grave desecration on your file."

"Quickest way of dealing with a vengeful spirit is to salt and burn its bones," Dean replied, "course it doesn't work when they've been cremated; then you have to find the object they've cursed and destroy that by burning. Then there was the nailing the zombie back in its coffin, that was really fun!"

"What about the breaking and entering?" The Chief asked not wanting to delve any deeper into the explanations.

Dean shrugged, "You'll have to be more specific on that, it's a hazard of the job that sometimes we need to find the evidence before the hunt."

"You say you have to find evidence, but then you burn everything so your claims can't be checked," Bones interrupted. "How can you prove that it was what you claim?"

Dean looked at her, ready to get angry, just because she didn't believe didn't mean these things weren't real. "First off lady, I don't tell you how to do your job so don't question me on mine," he rebuffed. "Secondly some of these things return if you don't dispose of the body; burning's the tried and tested way of stopping that. Sometimes the thing reverts to its human form on death, so yeah then we have to get rid of the evidence."

"You'd better explain that last one," Booth instructed feeling a dread at the answer.

Sam looked at Dean before replying, "Werewolves return to their human form, so it would appear to the police that someone had been killed by a silver bullet. We're not sure whether they can infect anyone after they die, so it's better to burn and be sure." Sam paused to give them time to take that in before continuing, "If someone is possessed they can fall out of windows and break bones but still appear to be ok… until they are exorcised… once the demon is out they will die. Unless you see the person before they've been exorcised you'd think whoever exorcised them had killed them."

"If you go after a werewolf can you hold off burning until we get some evidence to test?" Bones asked hoping to prove this one to be a fake.

"So long as you don't expect to be there when we go after it," Dean responded.

The Chief looked surprised at the easy answers and was still processing the information as he asked, "So have you added to your requests?"

Dean and Sam looked confused, then looked at each other with a 'do you know what he's talking about, cuz I don't' look.

"You told Seeley that you wanted certain assurances before you would help us with our case files," The Chief explained.

"Oh those?" Dean replied and promptly looked at Sam to continue.

"Why don't we start with our original requests and work it from there?" Sam suggested.

"Well we've dealt with the St. Louis case; Dean is now off the wanted list for murder. Charges on other cases will be dropped only after you've explained what you were doing but I don't foresee a problem there," The Chief replied.

Dean shrugged, "Fair enough."

"We'd need to check what weapons you're carrying before allowing a license to cover them and I'd like to see you use them in our firing range. Anything illegal would have to be explained and even then I'd be dubious. I understand most of your ammo is specially made, so I'd need the name of your supplier."

"What we have gets the job done, different creatures different kill methods; so if it's illegal we still need it. As for our supplier we'd need assurances of their protection, we've already lost our best to a demon and there's not many out there," Dean rebuffed.

"I understand but we need to check them out. Identity fraud is a big one for you; either id badges or credit cards. If we get the current charges dropped we won't expect to find new ones," he instructed.

"So how are we supposed to do our job?" Dean complained. "We don't get paid and I can only hustle so much pool, besides motels expect a credit card."

"We'll create four identities for each of you. The identities will all have a credit card and id; if you ever need to make another id quickly you use one of those identities and inform your handler," the Chief insisted.

"What if we can't?" Sam postulated.

"This office will not be held responsible," he replied. "If you follow the rules you have the protection of this office, if not you're on your own."

Dean shrugged, "been on our own most of our lives."

"That's true," Booth agreed brightly, "but wouldn't it make things a little easier if you didn't have to get out of town before they rumbled your real identities."

"Yeah but we've been picking up our own cases without a handler, why would we want one now?" Sam interrupted.

"You said your dad sent you on cases," Booth replied to which the boys nodded, "well think of your handler like your dad; sending you cases and checking you're ok."

Sam and Dean shrugged at each other. "Our dad's gone and no-one can replace him," Dean ground out.

"Your handler wouldn't replace your dad," Booth shrugged, "just be a safety net passing you jobs occasionally."

"So if we need hospital treatment we ring our handler and everything gets sorted?" Sam asked.

Booth looked at the Chief, "You'll have a basic medical card in each name, anything more your handler will arrange; not that we expect you to be using it too often. So can you help us to help you, or do you want to go back to being fugitives?"

"What about our contacts and friends?" Sam asked.

"We'll see what we can do after you help us out," the Chief replied. "I understand Seeley had you look at two cases," they nodded, "so what do you think?"

"You seem to have a werewolf in Richmond just down the road in Virginia and over in Carthage Mississippi you seem to have another shape shifter," Dean replied. "Since the full moon's at the end of the week the werewolf would be first priority, and then make a move on the shape shifter."

"So you need to be out of here by Thursday?" the Chief suggested, Dean gave Sam a sideways glance before they agreed. "That gives everyone the rest of today and tomorrow to sort out the details," he instructed Booth. "I'll get paperwork completed for you to sign tomorrow afternoon, Seeley will check your weapons and set up the firing range for you. In the meantime I suggest that you take them to your office and start on the files."

As they stepped out into the corridor a confused Dean turned to Sam, "have we actually agreed to anything yet?"

"Not yet," Sam confirmed.

**Tbc**


	11. Chapter 11

**Part 11**

As they entered Booth's office Dean noticed a pile of folders on the desk. "I suppose you want us to look through those while we're here?" he asked sarcastically taking in the layout of the room.

Booth chuckled moving to go behind the desk, "They're for later first we have to decide on identities for you."

Bones followed them into the office and closed the door. She moved to take a seat to the side of the desk.

"No offence lady," Dean started, feeling uncomfortable with this woman who questioned everything they did, "but are you going to be following us around everywhere?"

Bones opened her mouth to say something but Booth beat her to it. "As my partner she'll be closely involved in anything surrounding any case you undertake. Any evidence collected will be examined by her team before destruction," he tried really hard not to make it sound like it was a foregone conclusion that they would be doing work for the FBI.

Sam and Dean looked at him as though he'd gone mad; they were still standing just inside the room. "So the next time a ghost is attacking Sam and I'm busy digging up the grave. I have to call you to send someone over before I salt and burn the son of a bitch? Because if that's the case, we're outta here."

"Obviously if someone's in immediate danger I'd expect you to take steps to protect them," Booth tried to placate, "but if not then evidence will need to be collected," he reasoned trying to get them to take a seat.

"She's not going to be our handler or anything like that, is she?" Sam queried with a frown as he sat down; he just couldn't see Dean wanting them to stick around if she was; they just seemed to rub each other the wrong way.

"No, I've got better things to do than that," she snapped astounded that they would think such a thing.

Dean breathed a sigh of relief and visibly relaxed into his seat. "So what's this about identities…? I usually pick a name from the last tape we were playing."

Booth laughed as he checked the FBI files on Dean and Sam, "Yeah we kinda guessed that… we've found John Bonham… James Hetfield… Roger Glover… to name but a few aliases' on ids. I'm surprised you've never used them on credit card applications."

This time Dean laughed, "Thought they might pick up on those."

"Well no rock star names on FBI issued ids. So far we have Dean and Sam Winchester; we thought you'd like to keep your own names. Dave and Steve Webster, Mike Daniels and James Simons, and finally Drew Marshall and Jake Bolan," Booth informed them as he flipped through several ID cards. "All we need for these are some photos," as soon as he said it he saw Dean tense and knew he'd moved too fast.

"But we still haven't agreed to anything yet?" Dean was puzzled, if this was the FBI's idea of a carrot it wasn't working.

"True but this is just getting everything ready for when you sign the contracts… or should I say if you want to sign them," Booth grinned knowing that if they'd stuck around this long then he'd get them to sign, if they were going to run they wouldn't have turned up this morning.

Dean did a double take, "Contracts makes this," he waved his hand over the desk, "seem a bit formal, no get out," he panicked, he wished he'd persuaded Sam to just leave this morning then he wouldn't be sat here wondering how they were going to get away.

Sam was amused by his brother's reaction and put a hand on his shoulder, "Just keeping breathing… slowly… in… out."

Dean batted his brother's hand away and glared at him, "It's alright for you… you like normal… contracts mean IRS forms... means home bases… means…"

Sam looked at Booth, "The advantage of being off the radar means never filling in official forms and being accountable… we've never really lived like that. My time at Stanford was the closest for either of us."

Booth suddenly realized why Dean seemed reluctant. "I didn't think of that," Booth admitted. "Since we're not expecting you to settle down in town maybe I can get the Chief to organize something with the IRS. Will that make it easier to just deal with the other issues for now?" Seeing Sam look confused about his willingness to find a solution, he added, "we've had an increase in cases that even with our usual bullshit excuses we can't solve. I think they might be more your thing and we really need your help."

Dean looked to Sam and indicated they needed to talk. "Can you give us five minutes alone?" Sam asked.

Booth looked between the two of them and realized that although Dean led the hunts Sam was the one leading this, "Yeah Bones and I can go get a coffee… you want one?"

"Um, yeah… coffee would be good," Dean replied as Booth got up to leave pulling Bones with him.

As soon as they were alone Dean got up and started pacing, "Sam… Dude… this is why we never stay still long enough to get caught… IRS… contracts… normal… I can't do this."

Sam got up and stood facing his brother and grabbed his shoulders to still him. "Yes you can… it'll just take a bit of getting used to," Sam shrugged looking directly into his brothers eyes. "Look Dean I know you're scared and you've never done anything like this before, but you can do it." He made a small laugh letting go of his brother before he continued, "You do know what this means?" Dean just stared at him with a frown. "It means for the first time in my life we can walk down a street and not be looking over our shoulders in case the authorities are there."

"Sam we'll always be looking over our shoulders… to see which demon is chasing us," Dean argued. "Dad said he wanted me to have a home and you to go to school, but this won't do that… you always wanted to get out of the business," he laughed, shrugged his brother away and started pacing again, "you think you'll get normal if we sign a contract? You'll never get away from what we do… All this it's just too much too quickly."

Sam smiled trying to stop his brother's pacing, "Ok so we don't get normal," he laughed. "Sorta figured that after dad… but at least this way we've only got to think about the hunt… not, do we eat or sleep in a motel because we haven't got enough money for both… it may not be perfect but together we can work with it," he appealed to his brother's need.

"And what about when you don't want to 'work with it'… when you find some chick to settle down with… how do I continue then with these suits pushing me around?" Dean replied turning his back on his brother, unable to make eye contact fearing what he might see.

Sam quirked his head understanding where some of his brother's fear lay; "Dean, I'm not leaving… not this time… I'm in for the long haul… we've got a demon to find and kill… we've got to find out what he wants with the children like me… and there's lots of other evil sons of bitches that need putting down before they ruin someone else's life," he responded. Putting his hand on his brother's arm again, "Dean I'm gonna be there for you."

Dean tried to put on a show of smirking as he pushed his brother away, "Well after a chick flick moment like that you'd better be... bitch." The banter kept away the doubt that nothing Sam said could completely erase after Salvation.

Sam punched his brother lightly in the shoulder, "jerk," he smiled as they went to find the coffee, thinking that Dean believed him.

As soon as they were out of the door Bones glared at Booth. "What do you think all that was about?" she asked.

"Sam's had normal at Stanford… but Dean… well he's grown up like a soldier… and it's like getting de-mobbed… there's a fear about how you're going to cope with civilian life," he replied and she quirked her head at his answer.

"But he's not a soldier… he's never been trained to fight… he's just been allowed to run around wild with deluded thoughts of chasing demons," Bones countered in her crisp tones as though Dean were some country hillbilly.

"We'll see how well he's been trained when they show us their skills on the firing range," Booth leaned in to her to avoid being overheard by his colleagues, as he waited for his coffee from the machine.

"You mean you trust them on the firing range," she replied at her normal level and was promptly overheard by Gerry and some of the other agents.

"You're not going to let those renegades loose on the firing range," Gerry called over all smiles and quick glances to the other agents nearby, "this I've got to see. First some female scientist and now some lunatic punks, you really pick them Booth."

Booth glared at Bones and she glared back. Turning to Gerry with a smirk, "You think they're so bad… how about a wager," Gerry looked interested. "I'll put 100 on Dean beating anyone you choose in a head-to-head."

Bones looked at him and quietly pulled him to the side, "I thought you shouldn't be doing that?" she asked worried knowing about his addiction to gambling.

He smirked, "Don't worry it's a one off… and I think he can take anyone here."

She whispered, wondering where his confidence in this young delinquent came from, "Including you?"

"Unless he gets cocky," he whispered back taking a gulp of his coffee before handing her one.

Gerry had been talking with some other Agents, "Talk about easy money… sure you don't want to take it back?" he offered, but Booth shook his head. "Ok Reece is our best all-rounder, we accept the challenge."

Dean just caught the end of the conversation as he and Sam came looking for their coffee, "What challenge?" he asked intrigued.

Gerry put his arm around Dean, a gesture not appreciated by the younger man who glanced at the arm but refrained from pushing it off. "Booth here has said that you could beat our man in the firing range," the man laughed.

Dean looked at Booth with a wink, "How much did you put on it?"

"100."

Dean shrugged, "A bit cheap but ok… so do we get to choose weapons or what?" he asked rubbing his hands together in anticipation.

"Chief wanted us to check yours out and see what you got," Booth replied handing Dean and Sam a coffee. "So if we bring them all to the firing range then we can see how you do."

Dean raised an eyebrow, "seems like a plan," he agreed as they headed to the garage coffees in hand.

Dean opened the trunk of the Impala and Booth whistled in amazement, "You use all of these?" he asked as Bones looked totally astounded at the array of weapons.

"Sam's the knife man but the rest of it is pretty much universal," Dean replied nonchalantly as he and Sam started packing the weapons into duffle bags.

Bones looked at the crossbow, "What do you need that for?"

"Silver tipped arrows when we don't want to alert people to our presence… or dipped in dead man's blood when chasing vampires," he replied with a shrug like everyone should know this stuff.

"Dead man's blood?" she queried with a grimace about what else they might be carrying around with them.

"Yeah… for some reason it's poisonous to vampires… so if you hit them with it it'll slow them down so you can kill them," Sam responded with a shrug as his brother closed the trunk and they both hoisted their duffle's to carry in."

As they walked back to the lift Booth asked, "So you drive around with that arsenal all the time?"

Dean looked surprised at the question, "Nowhere to leave it… the Impala is the closest thing to a home base for us… so everything we need is usually in there."

"I noticed some instruments in there," Booth continued. "What are they for?"

"Oh EMF meter… that's for spotting the creatures we hunt," Sam replied dismissively not wanting to explain everything to these people.

The firing range and viewing platform were crowded by the time they arrived and Booth almost regretted his challenge, but Gerry was an ass-hole and needed to be shown up for what he was. Gerry had bet against Booth without ever seeing Dean handle a gun, whereas Booth had seen how swift Dean had been with a knife even when he wasn't well.

"So what you got in the bags boys," Gerry taunted. "Pop guns… I hear real bullets are too frightening for you," turning to his colleagues he continued to mock, "You have to use salt so it won't hurt anyone." He and the other agents laughed.

Dean snarled, "Ever had someone fire a round of rock salt at you?" Gerry flinched and the others went quiet. "It might not kill you but it sure hurts like hell," Dean continued as he unloaded the weapons and Sam flinched at the memory of shooting his brother.

All the Agents were surprised at the array of weapons that Sam and Dean were placing on the bench and how expertly they were checking that they were ready to use.

"What's this… a crossbow?" Gerry sneered as he went to pick it up.

Dean slammed Gerry's hand away before he reached it, "Unless I'm told you have to touch it… you keep your hands off our weapons."

"And if I don't?" Gerry challenged expecting the younger man to back down.

Dean shrugged appearing non-threatening as he growled just loud enough for Gerry to hear, "You'll be spending some time in the hospital with a few less digits."

Booth was enjoying the banter, but had overheard Dean's last comment and didn't want it getting out of hand. "Look Gerry back-off… let's stick to one challenge," he requested as he maneuvered him away from Dean and back to his friends.

Reece and Dean took it in turns to fire various hand guns and rifles, although Reece only had FBI issue firearms. The results were checked and Gerry insisted that they were matched even though it was obvious to everyone else that Dean was better.

Dean was getting pissed at Gerry's attitude because even Reece had accepted that Dean had won the challenge. For the final target Dean insisted that they set them twice as far away as before and had the targets swinging.

Reece went first and clipped the target which Gerry thought would win, thinking the punk was being over confident. Then Dean went and despite Gerry trying to distract him, he hit dead centre.

Gerry wasn't pleased when he had to hand his money over to Booth, who just laughed, "You should know your opposition before you lay your money down."

Reece turned to Dean, "How'd you manage that?"

"Our dad always said any idiot can hit a target on a wall but most targets are moving," Dean replied, "so we did a lot of moving target practice… not on a plush range like this but in the woods… dad would tie a target to a branch on a windy day… anything less than dead center on every one and it'd be a two mile run followed by 100 press-ups."

Sam smiled at the memory, "Yeah… it did sort of focus the mind if you wanted to be in before dark on winter's evenings and have something hot to eat."

The Chief came over impressed by the array of weapons in front of Dean, "I see this turned into a grudge match… Do I take it that Dean won?"

"Beat me fair and square," Reece agreed clapping a hand on Dean's back in appreciation of his skill.

"Have you used the crossbow yet?" the Chief asked Dean.

"I didn't think Reece would know how to use one… so I was sort of saving that," Dean replied as he turned to Sam with a grin, "for the brotherly grudge match."

Sam had been doing his own shots in the third lane while the challenge had continued. Now he called over, "Ready for the crossbow?"

"Ok let's do it… you tell them where to stop," Dean replied as the targets were moved into position.

Sam didn't say stop but the targets did when they got to the end of the range. Dean quirked a brow at Sam, "Are you challenging me?" he accused with a smirk.

"Closest to the bull picks the music for the next month," the younger brother replied with a grin.

"Uh-uh I am not having your girly crap playing in my car for the next month," Dean retorted.

"So you think I'm better than you," Sam smirked knowing his brother wouldn't back down from the challenge.

"In your dreams Samantha," his brother rebuffed lightly.

"Well if you're better you've got nothing to worry about," Sam replied with the most innocent expression.

Dean scowled, "After you Samantha."

They lined up to take their shots and Dean put two bolts on the table. Booth looked at him confused. "Just don't let anyone through until I say," Dean instructed. Dean shot one bolt at his own target as Sam did the same, as soon as the first had hit Dean loaded his second bolt and aimed at Sam's target.

Sam came round, "What was that?"

"Just wanted you to remember who's the best," Dean smirked as someone called everyone to check the targets. Although they were both in similar positions on their own target Dean's second bolt had pierced Sam's shot.

"Show off," Sam nudged his brother.

"Didn't want you thinking you could mess with my music," Dean replied and got a shoulder shove from his brother.

Gerry glared at them, "So you two clowns think you're so good, how about some unarmed combat?"

"Sounds good to me," Dean replied with a shrug to Booth. "Missed my workout this morning," it wasn't true but anything to rile the guy and this was fun beating this asshole.

"You're so cocky… need taking down a peg in two," Gerry snarled as they moved out of the firing range.

Booth pulled Dean aside, "Are you sure about this… it's not long since you were out for the count?"

Dean smirked, "Yeah I need to know if I'm off my game if we're back on the road soon."

Between the firing range and the gym Booth had managed to get identity photos taken of both Sam and Dean. Now they were entering the gym with Bones looking around like she was planning to help, though Dean couldn't think why she'd want to do that.

The gym was a large wooden floored room with piles of mats and some benches. It was marked up as a basketball court with the hoops on the wall at either end.

Dean had a quick look for a ball; he hadn't played since high school but wondered if he could still make the throw. He was so distracted that he almost missed Sam's nudge, "What's up dude?"

"You look miles away," Sam replied smiling, "You thinking about that high school game dad missed? You totally won that game for the team. Pity dad moved us on before the finals."

Dean shrugged, "Yeah, that's just the way it was."

Booth missed the conversation as he was talking to Bones, but was then telling them, "Gerry's got two guys interested in the fight… Karl 6'8" who usually gets beaten by Ethan 6'3"… both built like tanks and mean as hell."

"So am I expected to take them on alone… or is Sammy taking one… or is it tag team?" Dean asked trying to understand how the FBI worked these things, with his brother leaning in close.

"I think you get Ethan, but if you look like you're winning Karl could join in," Booth replied expecting some dirty play. "If he does Sam can come in to cover your back."

"Always do," Sam replied eying the two men who had entered the arena. "What about a weapons check?"

"Either of you carrying?" Booth asked thinking that they were clean.

"Only a couple of knives," Dean replied with a shrug, Sam glared at him and Booth looked amazed. "Hey I'm not used to being without… snagged them when we went back to the car."

"If I call them on it you'll be searched too… you're choice," Booth laid out the options.

"What are they likely to be packing?" Dean asked knowing Sam probably wasn't.

"If they've got knives they won't be official issue," Booth replied. "With the Chief watching they won't want to use anything not kosher… they wouldn't have guns in here."

Dean shrugged, "Then we don't call them on it… if they look relieved then you'll know they're packing and make sure Sam has a knife before he joins in."

Sam glared, "And what makes you think I haven't already got one?"

"Because Sammy-boy you believe in fair play and that everyone plays by the rules… you forget there is no safe place and even the good guys break the rules… as for are usual playmates they always break our rules," Dean replied patting his brother's arm.

Sam shrugged him off with a huff as they got prepared for the fight.

Dean watched while Ethan warmed up on the edge of the area. He was cautiously evaluating Ethan who was slightly taller but broader and definitely built to fight, more like a boxer.

Ethan was doing his own assessment of the cocky kid who was just watching him and making no attempt to warm up. Ethan knew his own ability with martial arts and boxing, the punk kid looked like he might be ok in street fighting but Ethan knew how to take care of those kids.

The gym instructor was going to ref and made sure that they understood that they had to follow his rules and break if he said to. He did the usual start of fight things like getting them to shake hands before the match started. He insisted that they would only fight each other and that no substitutions could be made during the match.

Although everything was said to make it fair neither the Winchesters nor Booth expected it to stay that way, although Bones thought the Winchesters would stick to the rules because they were not in their usual environment.

After circling each other for what seemed like forever Ethan made a lunge at Dean, who quickly side-stepped and carried on circling.

"Go on Ethan," Gerry called, "he's too pussy to fight."

Dean smirked that guy was a real jerk.

Ethan threw some martial arts punches, which Dean blocked easily. Dean hadn't mounted an attack as he was still trying to ascertain Ethan's weaknesses in attack, he wouldn't have time on a hunt but this was a matter of Winchester pride.

Ethan then did a combination of punches and kicks which would normally have an opponent on the ground, but Dean blocked or avoided them all. He then mounted his own attack which had Ethan on the floor. Ethan rolled until he seemed to have won but just as the ref was going to give him the point Dean switched positions again and had Ethan pinned and unable to move. First point to the Winchesters.

During the next round Ethan deliberately elbowed Dean in the mouth and stomach, then punched him in the nose making it bleed. After the punch the ref checked that Dean was ok, although there was no way Dean would have allowed them to stop the match at that point. With his head feeling dizzy and disorientated Dean lost the point and went back to a concerned Sam before the final round.

"You got a drink of water?" he asked Booth as Sam fussed to make sure he was ok and got batted away.

Booth handed him a bottle, "Are you sure you want to continue?"

Dean smirked, "Hey it's only just getting interesting. If the son of a bitch hadn't blindsided me he'd be gone, never given up before… not gonna now."

The final round started with Ethan trying to taunt Dean as Dean just smirked back. When Ethan made his move Dean countered and had Ethan pinned before Ethan knew what was happening.

Ethan was swearing at Dean and the ref, trying to get out of the hold.

Out of the corner of his eye Sam saw Karl move towards the mat. He was by Karl's side before he had moved far. "I don't think you want to join in," he threatened, "because I'll take you out before you step on the mat… No-one messes with my brother when I'm around."

Karl thought he could take this young punk and his brother, no trouble. He moved onto the edge of the mat opposite to where Dean and Ethan were. No sooner had his foot stepped on the mat than he was on his back and pinned to the mat unable to move. He tried to move and only managed to clip Sam's mouth which started bleeding, which made Sam more determined to keep the guy down until the ref tied up the match.

As the ref declared Dean the winner he realized that there were two other bodies on the mat. Checking with the Chief, who had been watching, he declared that the Winchesters had won both matches. Gerry protested but was ignored as Dean rushed up to check his brother's injury.

"Dude you ok?" he asked hands on Sam's face examining the cut lip.

Sam almost smirked, "I'm fine," he replied irritated. "What about you?" he checked Dean's nose and cut lip.

Dean batted his hands away, "Hey I'm not the fragile one here… I'm used to getting beaten and bloody."

Sam raised his eyebrows, "And whose fault is that? If you didn't push me outta the way we'd probably be even."

Booth, Bones and the Chief came to join them on the mat.

"That was a good fight and good shooting from both of you," the Chief complemented them. Turning to Booth, "I want to see you all in my office in half an hour."

Having cleaned up and tended their wounds Dean and Sam grabbed a coffee before following Booth back to the Chief's office. Bones was busy talking to the Chief in hushed tones when they arrived. She was sat on a chair next to him on his side of the desk.

Booth glared at her wondering what she was planning and knowing that neither he nor the Winchesters would be happy if the Chief agreed with her.

"Come on in boys," the Chief welcomed them indicating that they should take a seat, "we were just talking about the case that you discussed yesterday."

Sam and Dean looked at each other, a frown on both of their faces. "I don't know what you're talking about," Dean hedged.

The Chief smiled, "I'm sure you don't. Dr Brennan was telling me that you identified one of the cases that Agent Booth gave you as a werewolf," he continued watching them closely for their reaction.

Dean's poker face betrayed nothing but Sam looked mildly confused, "And why would we think that," he asked.

"Don't worry I don't think you're mad," the Chief confessed, "that's why Agent Booth brought the problem of dealing with you to me and ignored FBI chains of command."

Both Sam and Dean looked even more confused. Dean turned to Booth, "so what's really going on here?"

"After we arrested you and got you back to Washington I listened to a lot of stories which seemed far fetched but since most of them came from my priest I gave them the benefit of a doubt. I didn't know who in the Agency would do the same until Father Raymond suggested that I speak to Deputy Director Stanfield. So I made an appointment and tried to enlist his help on your behalf," Booth explained.

"When Agent Booth came to me I admit I was surprised," the Chief took up the explanation. "I had tried to keep the Agents one step behind you since your father cleared a particularly nasty ghost from my first home in town. I even passed his number on to a friend who had a poltergeist problem a few years ago. Do you remember Jerry Panowski?"

Dean looked surprised, "You know Jerry? So how come I don't know you?"

Stanfield looked amused, "John did that job fifteen years ago when you and Sam were staying at Pastor Jim's for the summer. He told me a bit about his kids while he was setting up for the job. I told him I couldn't actively help him but would try to keep you all off the radar. Which worked until you were accused of murder… but with a dead body…? I thought you'd be ok."

Bones hadn't realized that Stanfield had previous knowledge of the Winchesters when she'd come to him with her plan and wondered whether he had just been playing her. "So if you knew all about this madness they spout why have you been agreeing with me?" she asked.

"I don't think I did agree with you about the werewolf just about you sticking close to the case," he replied.

"What do you mean she can stick close to the case? How close?" Booth asked worried, he didn't want her anywhere near them when they were hunting.

Dean looked at Sam then sat back to listen to the discussion between the other three.

"I just suggested that we should follow these two wherever they went and find out the truth about this supposed werewolf," Bones replied innocently. "I mean they could shoot someone and claim they were a werewolf and how would we know the difference?"

Dean looked shocked at the suggestion but one look at Sam warned him not to say anything. He was tempted to ignore Sam but it wasn't worth the agro.

"From what I've heard, you'll want to stay back from the immediate front line," the Chief argued. "I believe there will be enough evidence from the corpse to confirm that it isn't completely human and that's enough for me. So you'll only need to be close enough to retrieve the body before the local coroner destroys evidence."

Dean breathed a sigh of relief, he didn't want to try and protect anyone else; Sam was enough of a worry for him.

"But all of this is digressing from why I wanted to see you boys," the Chief addressed Dean and Sam. "Life would be easier for you if my boys didn't keep chasing you round the country," he suggested and after glancing at each other Dean and Sam agreed. "But if Agent Booth and I help you, we want your help in return. I believe Agent Booth has explained about the increased incidence of cases that don't fit our normal stuff and we think might be your thing."

"Yeah… He seems to have a lot more files on his desk," Sam agreed.

"Agent Booth said you knew someone who was setting up a database of solved cases," the Chief addressed Sam.

"I might," he replied cagily, "but you wouldn't get direct access."

"If we emailed you case overviews could you get the person to check them out?"

"You mean act as an intermediary," Sam asked for confirmation. The Chief nodded.

"Maybe," Sam hedged, "but what about the ones that haven't been solved?"

"I would hope that you and your brother would want to solve them," he replied.

"So you stop your guys chasing us, only to have the IRS chasing us," Dean snarked.

"You would get financed for helping us but would never be classed as an employee," the Chief smiled, "you'd be a business expense. As for the IRS most of life is about who you know and I know someone who can ensure that your returns are filed and that you will never owe anything."

Dean looked perplexed and did a sideways glance to Sam. "You mean the records will be falsified?" Sam queried.

"In such a way that it will never be traceable to anyone," the Chief confirmed.

"So let me get this straight, a shape shifter in St. Louis gets me wanted for murder and I get chased around the country by the FBI and every other agency. But we take cases for you and more laws get broken but no-one will be chasing us," Dean posed frowning and totally confused.

"I'm not saying no-one will chase you," the Chief smirked. "What I am saying is you'll be safe from prosecution and have enough legal credit cards that you shouldn't need to be guilty of fraud. I know you're worried about signing contracts so if you'll do this first case we'll leave signing contracts until it's completed."

"What about the ids and cards?" Dean asked worried that even if they backed out later they needed to stay clean for now.

"You'll have the set that have your real names, although you'll have to sign for them," the Chief replied.

Glancing at each other Dean and Sam agreed to give it a go. Turning to the Chief, "One job and we talk further," Sam queried.

"That's what I said."

"Ok we'll do it," Sam agreed.

"But she stays where we tell her," Dean added staring at Bones. "I'm not going to be responsible for her getting her throat torn out or shooting her to kill the son of a bitch."

"Booth will be there to keep her out of trouble," the Chief confirmed, "but you'll have final say as the lead on this job."

Bones wanted to protest but one look at Booth confirmed that no-one would stick-up for her and she'd just have to play along, for now.

Tbc


	12. Chapter 12

**Beauty is but Skin Deep Part 12/12**

**Author: Idiot4dean**

Part 12

After Dean and Sam had signed for their ids they went back to Booth's office with him and Bones.

"So where do you want to start?" Booth asked as he closed the door and made his way round the desk picking up one of the files.

"Already have," Dean replied looking around the room to get a better understanding of this guy they would be working with; he'd tried the same with Bones' office but it seemed too work focused for any insights. In Booth's office he noticed a picture of a child on the desk and went to pick it up.

Booth raised an eyebrow, "When?" He took the picture from Dean's hand and put it back smiling at the photo of his son.

"Last night," Sam responded with a tilt of his head and a frown as though surprised that Booth thought they wouldn't.

"So what have you found out about this 'werewolf'? How do you find it?" Bones asked skeptically standing beside Booth in front of the window.

"Look skepticism is fine when you're doing your job, but if you insist on following us around you'd better can it before it gets you killed," Dean rounded on her irritated, he'd had enough of her bullshit. "This job is hard enough without you sniping all the time. So since we've got to put up with you the rules are you keep your mouth shut and do as you're told or I will have no hesitation in leaving your ass somewhere safe and suffering the consequences with Stanfield."

Booth was impressed with Dean's stance but knew Bones wouldn't accept it; he'd been trying to get her to do as she was told for too long to think this would be the end of her defiance.

"You wouldn't dare," she challenged glaring at him across the desk.

"Lady you're skating on thin ice. My brother might think older women can frighten me, but it only works when I'm in their world. You want to come into mine you play by my rules; even Sammy had to learn that," he rebuked matching the glare leaning over the desk.

Sam decided to intervene before Dean said anything else and put a hand on his brother to make him relax back. "Look everything we've got is back at the hotel," he shrugged. "So why don't we go back there with anything you've got and we can start planning."

Dean smirked at his brother, instantly relaxing at the change of subject, "you trying to lead this Sammy?"

Sam looked uncomfortable until he realized Dean was kidding then he bit his lip as he nudged his brother's shoulder. "Can't hear you suggesting anything better," he complained.

Booth grabbed a file off the table, dropping the one he had just picked up, and turned back to them, hoping that it would break the deadlock between Bones and Dean, "Ok lead the way." He'd really wanted to look at some other cases but if they were eager to get this one done then he wouldn't argue.

Dean had caught sight of the file number and smiled, "X5494 isn't that a character off that show Dark Angel?" he asked amused by the TV reference.

Sam and Bones gave him a strange look while Booth smirked, "yeah the good looking punk who never got the girl. You watch that?"

"Yeah that's the one, caught it a few times." Dean agreed, "Pity that he didn't, she was hot and that other guy was far too old for her. So we're officially in X-files country now?"

"Nah it was just a joke by the person who started the file and it stuck," Booth replied as they left the office heading for the garage. "The only description of the attacker made him sound like the dog guy in Dark Angel, the Agent was a fan of the show so stuck the number on the file."

"Surprised he didn't use X5493, he was the psycho one," Dean grinned.

"It was just before the show was cancelled that the file was started so I guess she didn't think about that," Booth replied with a wink. Sam and Bones were totally lost with the conversation having never watched the show and being geeks.

When they got to the door of the hotel suite Booth was surprised that there was a do not disturb notice on it, it wasn't as though they were even in the room. As they entered the suite Bones was equally surprised to see salt across the threshold and in the lounge area three notice boards full of information about the case; the notice on the door now made sense to Booth. Both of them wandered over to the notice boards to see what the young men had already found.

Dean went to get a beer and check the room service menu while Sam went to the laptop to check something out, both of them ignoring the confused stares from Booth and Bones. This was more like their normal, so Dean set about ordering food while Sam sorted out some research.

"Ok so where did you get all of this stuff?" Booth asked looking at the map of Richmond Virginia with lots of pins and labels over it. He could see they were attacks over a period of 50 years which was much longer than the file the FBI had.

Sam looked up from the laptop at Booth and shrugged, "You know here and there, just a bit of research."

Bones was looking at another board which was full of articles about werewolf mythology and some hand written sheets with dates and places. "What're these all about?" she queried. "I thought you had done this before."

Dean passed a bottle of beer to Sam before standing beside her and explaining the papers. "It always helps the focus if we have reminders of what we think we're looking for on the wall. We can cross reference incidents to both the mythology and past experiences that way," he replied seriously as he indicated a link between a crime scene and a date from the journal page on the board. "We think this one was discovered by dad in 1985 but skipped town when he tried to track it."

"I thought your dad was the real expert," Bones replied sarcastically as she continued reading the information with only a glance over her shoulder. She was really surprised at how much research material was on display and how detailed some of the hand written pieces were.

Dean was about to snap at her over her attitude towards their father, someone she knew nothing about, so Sam stepped in quickly. "We have a small window in which to find and eliminate a werewolf, if we miss it we have to try again the next month," Sam explained patiently to the obviously skeptical scientist. "With this one it took dad two months to find it and then it skipped town and he was busy on other cases when it returned. From what we discovered it didn't return until April 26th 2002 and has been killing every month since then, although not all have been attributed to a serial killer."

Booth raised an eyebrow in disbelief and turned to look at Sam from the board with incidents marked, "So you're saying that all these incidents are the act of one serial killer?"

"Not necessarily," Dean countered as he moved towards the board that Booth was looking at, taking a long gulp of his beer on the way. "That board has all recorded incidents of attacks that have taken place on or around the full moon in an area of the city for the last fifty years; some of them might have more normal explanations."

"Where did you get all the information," Bones asked impressed that they would even look that far back, looking from Dean to Sam.

Sam felt uncomfortable about admitting how they did their research but Dean saved him the concern. "We started from the information in the file we saw yesterday then added in the stuff from dad's journal," he explained moving over to where his brother was sat. "Then Sammy did his stuff on the computer and we were finding lots more incidents from the papers and police reports."

"So it's true about you hacking into official computers?" Booth asked with a smirk wondering what their reply would be.

Dean shrugged, "You've got your job and we've got ours, since you're not hot on information exchange we have to find our own way in. At the end of the day if it gets a killer off the streets can't see what the harm there is in what we do," he raised an eyebrow at Booth waiting for him to deny the truth of his statement.

Booth saw the challenge in Dean's stance and couldn't find an argument against him. "It's an impressive case file," he admitted. "So now you've got this far how do you find your suspect?"

Sam grinned as the printer started. "We've had a few artist impressions from victims and your description from the person who started the file," he explained picking up the printout and moving to pin it to the board.

Booth looked surprised, "But that's a character from a TV show," he gawped at the picture of Joshua from Dark Angel.

Dean smiled at Sam's addition, "But you said that the Agent thought the descriptions summed up this guy, so who better to put as a suspect."

"That's ridiculous," Bones complained thinking they were just trying to play her and Booth.

"Actually it's a starting point and I was hoping you would let me get a better likeness from Angela," Sam responded with a shrug.

Bones looked surprised by the request. "Why?"

Sam moved over to the picture, "Angela can take this and alter it until we get a better idea of what the suspect might look like. We have the suspects on police files so we can use them and if we go to the latest victims with some impressions they might be able to help us narrow it down."

Bones was surprised that his explanation seemed to make sense and couldn't find a reason to deny the request. "Ok so if Angela comes up with something what's the next move?"

"We need to set-up base in Richmond and talk to the possible surviving victims," Dean replied. "Then we need to check out the most likely place for the next attacks and work out where we'll use for observation."

"Ok, well I can help there," Booth offered wanting to be a little more than an outside observer on the case.

"No offence but you ever used silver bullets?" Dean asked. When Booth indicated he hadn't Dean continued, "Silver is soft so better used up close and personal; we might start observing from the rooftops but as soon as we find our guy we'll be down on the ground tracking. Getting that close there's always a personal risk and I'm not letting amateurs that close to the thing."

There was a knock at the door as room service arrived with their meal. Dean met them at the door, tipped them (to get rid of them quickly) and wheeled the trolley through so that the staff wouldn't see the boards.

They continued to discuss the case over dinner and agreed that Sam would go with Bones to the Institute and get Angela to do her stuff for potential killers, while Dean and Booth would take a field trip to Richmond to scope out the area.

As they finished their meal Dean leaned back in his seat and put his hands behind his head. "You know," he started, "I'm going to miss this tomorrow." Everyone looked back at him confused so he continued, "Well from tomorrow its back to reality and cheap motel rooms on the edge of town."

Booth looked at him, "You shouldn't need to do that with the bureau's credit cards."

Dean just smiled, "Maybe not but it wouldn't be us in up-market hotels, besides I kinda miss **not** being stared at when I walk through reception."

Sam stared at him, "What have you done to my brother?" he exclaimed. Dean gave him a look which said 'shut-up'. "Dude you love the chicks checking you out."

"Yeah I like that," Dean grinned, "but they're not doing that here. It's not just chicks, it's everyone and it just makes me feel uncomfortable, and that I can do without. You know the look that I get from Dr Brennan most of the time."

Bones was annoyed that he had accused her of being patronizing. "I don't," she snapped.

Booth grinned and she looked at him. "Yes you do, all the time," he agreed with Dean. "Why will you miss the place after tomorrow?"

"Even if Sam comes back tomorrow, you and I will be going to Richmond to start getting settled," Dean replied. "Then Sam and Dr. Brennan will join us there as soon as they've got the pictures, hopefully the day after if we're gonna get this thing this month. So I won't be coming back."

"We could try and arrange it for the de-briefing," Booth suggested.

Dean shook his head. "Nah it was fun but it's too cushy, don't want Sam to get too soft to do the job," he added patting Sam in the abdomen.

Dean dropped Sam at the Institute the next morning and headed straight to Richmond.

"Your brother isn't coming in then?" Bones queried as Sam walked in with his laptop bag.

"Nah, he gets edgy when we're hunting," Sam replied. "He just wants to get down there and start the on site research."

"Angela and Hodgins will be disappointed," she sighed not wanting to admit that she found him fascinating and would like to study him further.

"But you won't," Sam countered knowing how they seemed to be at each others throats.

"I know he's your brother but despite him making an interesting case study, he's far too much of a chauvinist for me to miss him," she lied.

Sam smirked and raised an eyebrow, "You mean he doesn't treat you with the respect you think you deserve and that makes you uncomfortable."

She frowned, "He does not make me uncomfortable," she protested as they made they're way to Angela's room. "He's just rude and uncouth. I'm just surprised that you're not more like him."

"Well you can blame a lot of that on Dean," Sam replied and she looked confused. "He acted like my mother and father from the first time dad left us alone to go hunting. He'd act as mediator between us and my protector against anything and everything, including doing whatever dad told him to protect me from having to do the same. He always made sure I got whatever I needed and most of the things I wanted, even if he went without and rarely complained about it. I never really appreciated what he gave up for me until I nearly lost him. So yeah he might have a bit of fun and turn on the charm in our down-time, but when he's working he'll go through hell to try and protect anybody and everybody from whatever we're hunting."

"He's your brother so I'd expect you to stick up for him," she responded trying to understand everything that Sam had just said.

"Yeah he's my brother and I walked out on him once without even thinking about how that would affect him, we didn't speak for two years," he argued. "It took me a year to break through enough of his walls to know why he's the way he is and sometimes he still surprises me. So yeah I'll defend him because you're judging him based on your own prejudices. Just when you're along on the hunt listen to what he says because he knows what he's doing."

"When I see the thing I'll believe it," she replied, "don't expect me to trust him until then."

"You wouldn't believe that you had something in common," Sam grinned, "but you do. Neither of you believe in anything you haven't seen, it's just that we've seen the things that go bump in the night and you haven't!"

They arrived at Angela's and they started talking about what they were hoping Angela could achieve.

Dean arrived at the Motel they had picked off the internet the night before and went straight to the office. Yeah this was definitely more normal he thought as he entered the office and the tired clerk looked away from the TV to see who had walked in.

"Can I help you?" the guy asked grudgingly getting up from his chair and walking over to the counter.

"Yeah has someone called Booth booked in yet?" Dean asked not knowing how Booth would address himself when booking in.

"You're the first today," the older guy replied around his cigarette getting a registration form in anticipation of the kid booking a room.

"Ok," Dean answered trying to ignore the clouds of smoke and tried to think what Booth would book; he gave up. "Have you got two adjoining twins?"

"Yeah rooms 7 and 8," the guy responded with a cough pushing the registration card across the counter and going to get the keys.

"Ok I'll take both and when he arrives just point him to room 7," Dean replied filling in the registration card and taking the keys; he wondered about making a quip about cigarettes killing you but didn't think the guy would be interested.

Half an hour later Dean had finished pinning up printouts and was drinking coffee sat at the table checking street maps when there was a knock on the door. He got up and answered, letting Booth in.

Booth looked at the threshold before he stepped into the room. "I see you've already got the salt down," he commented with a smirk, he didn't really understand it but these guys had some weird quirks and he wasn't going to argue about it.

"Yeah and the protection symbols," Dean agreed not realizing that Booth didn't really understand their paranoia about protection.

"Have you done it on my room?" Booth queried thinking it might be important in this case.

Dean looked surprised, "Didn't think you'd want me too," he replied wondering whether to offer.

"Yeah well I never thought I might need anything like that," Booth responded. "Now we're chasing something I don't understand I wonder whether I do."

Dean smiled, "since you're only here to observe and get evidence you should be ok. I got you a twin, wasn't sure how you worked things with Dr Brennan."

"Bones and I haven't had many opportunities," Booth grinned. "We can work it out, although I don't suppose we'll be there very much."

"That's true; we don't usually hang around long. Do you want to get settled before we grab some lunch and scope out some of the crime scenes?" Dean asked deciding that they wouldn't be sitting around waiting for Sam to call or join them. After what seemed like weeks of being questioned in Washington he just wanted to get out there and kill something; although it still had to be an evil son of a bitch.

"Surely there won't be anything to pick up after all this time?" Booth queried thinking of a shower and long lunch after the drive.

"Probably not," Dean shrugged, "but sometimes it's easier to pick things up when it's all around you. Maps give the lie of the land but they don't give you the perspective of the buildings or vegetation. Sometimes just looking around and knowing how these things hunt you can see why they chose that spot. I presume it's the same for any murderer, we just don't normally get involved in the human variety."

"Ok give me five minutes and we can get started," Booth agreed grabbing the keys to the next room.

"I'll meet you in the diner across the street," Dean replied folding the map and grabbing his jacket as he followed Booth out of the door.

"You seem eager," Booth smiled as he unlocked the door of his room.

"Yeah I'll explain over lunch," Dean replied over his shoulder as he headed across the road.

Sam and Bones showed Angela the pictures that Sam had obtained of the suspects.

"So what are you expecting?" Angela asked, "And how quickly?"

Bones indicated that Sam should explain. Sam showed Angela the pictures he was talking about as he explained, "Agent Booth said the person setting up the file thought that descriptions that people were giving them sounded like this character from the TV show Dark Angel. Since that is similar to what a werewolf would look like I'd like you to do effectively make-up the suspects to look like the character." He shrugged, "I don't know how easy that is and Dean will probably want us down in Richmond no later than tomorrow afternoon."

Angela smiled, "so no pressure."

Sam smiled and raised his eyebrows, "Dean doesn't like wasting time on a hunt."

Bones looked at Angela seriously, "do you think you can do it?"

Angela looked at the pictures carefully before answering, "Yeah, it'll take a few hours but I should be able to get something for you to work with by the end of the day."

"So what are you going to do while you're waiting?" Bones asked Sam.

"Since Dean's got all the research we need to get started on this… minus the pictures… I thought I'd start researching the other case Agent Booth left us with," he replied. Looking at her surprised expression he added, "Unless there's something you want me to do?"

She shook her head, "No… no that's fine I just didn't expect you to have anything to do."

"Yeah," he smirked. "Usually we work from case to case. Find a case solve it and then look for the next, but with Agent Booth giving us two I may as well give us a head start on the next." He pulled out his laptop and settled down at a table.

After eating Dean had taken Booth to the scene of the last murder somewhere near Kansas Avenue and they'd got out of the car to look around.

"So what are you looking for?" Booth asked making his way round to where Dean was checking the ground against a crime scene photo. Although Booth was used to examining crime scenes he didn't know if it was different when the perpetrator wasn't thought to be human.

Dean was crouched over the area he thought was most likely to be the crime scene. "We're about midway between the cemetery and the university," Dean commented. "It's a good place for the undead to hunt. You've always got young potential victims wandering around by themselves in an area they don't know well."

Dean got up and walk down the next street and came to a dead-end. "They get scared and end up running into a dead-end. Whatever is following has them trapped and knows the area," he continued picking a tooth off the floor and examining it.

Booth wondered what he'd found, "What's that?"

Dean shrugged, "might be evidence, might be a dog," he replied handing Booth what looked like a large dog's tooth. "You might want Dr Brennan to get her team to have a look at it."

Booth was impressed by Dean's careful survey of the area. Booth would usually get called in after someone had found a body and the CSIs would already have done a sweep but Dean was treating this whole area like a current crime scene.

Dean frowned as he carefully scanned the area for anything which didn't seem to fit and walked carefully looking for ways in and out of the street other than the way he'd come in. There was a manhole cover leading to the sewers, two of the buildings had fire escapes and there were some pallets against the fence at the end which could be used to get over the fence.

"So what are you looking for?" Booth asked. Dean frowned at him and he smirked, "I know you're looking for evidence but what sort of thing?"

"Don't you ever do this?" Dean asked as he looked up surprised at the question.

"Yeah but then we're looking for the sorts of things a human might leave," he laughed nervously, "I don't know what a werewolf might leave."

"Oh, of course," Dean shrugged, "just the usual teeth, claws, fur, anything which you wouldn't expect to see."

"What about this?" Booth asked picking up a knife with a handkerchief.

Dean's eyes lit-up, "Seems someone guessed what might be out here." He looked at the blade in Booth's hand, "yeah Dr Brennan will like that; she should be able to get some DNA off it." He took it from Booth and spun it around checking the markings on the blade. "If this had hit the mark we wouldn't be looking for it now," he commented. The blade was slim and sharp, designed to penetrate deep with the least pressure, there were runes written on the blade and protection symbols on the hilt.

Booth frowned, "how come?"

"It's steel edged silver and been designed to kill werewolves," Dean replied. "It's a hunter's knife, wonder what happened to the hunter?" Dean took some photos and an etching of the runes before passing it back to Booth. "You got someone who can get that back to the institute today?"

"Courier service," Booth replied as they headed back to the car. He rang a number and by the time they got back to the car a courier was waiting with a box to take the evidence to Bones.

When they got back to the motel Dean sent the photos of the knife to Ash and Bobby hoping they could come up with the identity of the owner. Booth went to get some half decent coffee and snacks.

They were pouring over the maps again when the door opened.

"You made good time," Dean stated without looking up as Sam and Bones entered the room.

"Sam seemed to think we needed to be here tonight," Bones retorted having a quick look around the room as Sam threw his bag on the far bed and brought the laptop to the table. "Something about watching your back."

Dean smirked, "what's up Sammy think I might ditch you for an FBI agent?"

Sam shoved Dean's shoulder, "you couldn't cope without me doing the research **and** watching your back."

"Hate to break it to you dude," Dean smirked, "but I spent four years without you and I had to do my own research."

"And you still wanted me back," Sam countered.

"Much as this banter is interesting surely we should be talking about the case," Booth interjected. "Did the evidence arrive before you left?"

Bones looked at Booth wondering what had happened, "yeah it arrived about half an hour before we left. The tooth isn't any known dog or wolf," she admitted, "so it is probably whatever you're hunting. The guys are doing a DNA test and will compare that with the people on file and see if they can find a match."

"That was an interesting knife you sent over," Sam commented. "It looks like a hunter's knife, you spoken to Bobby."

Dean rolled his eyes, "Dude, what do you take me for, an amateur? I sent pictures to Bobby and Ash, they're gonna call back if they find anything. In the meantime we were going to check out this area tonight so if you want something to eat we'd better head over to the diner."

"See you did need us here tonight, to watch your back," Sam growled.

Dean looked at him pointedly, "Yeah I need you but I don't need 'Mrs Goody Two-Shoes' getting in the way. Thought Booth and I could probably deal while you kept her busy, ok," he snapped, he just knew things wouldn't go smoothly with her around.

Bones was offended that Dean would think that she couldn't handle herself in the field, she had enough problems trying to convince Booth now this upstart thought she was a fragile female. She was determined to prove him wrong.

"Since you're both here the game plan is while you and I check out the streets on the ground," Dean instructed them. "You and Booth keep safe on the roof together; no-one gets separated, got me."

Everything had been going to plan when Dean got the feeling that things weren't right behind him.

"Stupid bitch," Dean growled as he turned and saw Bones in the alley him behind him and Sam with the werewolf heading straight for her. "Sammy get ready to take the shot when I take her down," he yelled running to tackle Bones.

Seeing him run towards her she turned thinking he just didn't want her around only to be confronted with a beast stalking towards her. It was still a few feet away and she thought she might be able to take it out when Dean knocked her over and two shots rang above her.

As Dean knocked Bones out of the way of the werewolf he attempted to take the shot. He missed and was clawed by the werewolf before it escaped. He was furious he had told the stupid woman to stay put with Booth on the roof but she had to follow them down into the alley. He heard Sam's shot and cuss as the werewolf disappeared.

"I told you to stay out of the way," he snapped at the woman as he got shakily to his feet, blood dripping from the wounds.

"You really expect me to take orders from a madman," she retorted still in shock about what had so nearly attacked her, not realizing how lucky she had been.

Booth joined them as Dean was trying to calm down. "Get her out of here before I do something I might regret," Dean growled as Sam joined them from the other direction.

"Hey dude, are you alright?" Sam asked his brother as he looked him over. He noticed the claw marks down the back of his jacket and turned his brother to check his face only to find another claw mark in his chest. "Shit Dean we need to get these checked out."

"No kidding," Dean replied sarcastically with a wince as he tried to move his shoulder.

"Did that just do them?" Bones asked, turning pale and reaching out to touch the marks on his shoulder.

"Yeah and I don't intend to save your ass again if you won't follow orders, so just stick close to your minder in future and maybe we can kill the son of a bitch next time and get out of dodge," Dean snapped stepping out of her reach. "You're driving," he told his brother as he tossed him the keys and headed back to the car.

"Shouldn't we try and follow it?" Booth asked as they followed Dean.

"Thanks to the bitch I'm in no shape to and just want to get this sorted before we try again," Dean replied as he held his left arm close to his body.

Sam looked at his brother concerned about the injuries, "hey you think we should be trying again. You're not exactly in the best shape for it man."

"Sammy it's personal, no son of a bitch messes me up and gets away with it," Dean retorted and Sam realized there would be no reasoning with his brother as they got into the car.

The journey back to the hotel was an uneasy silence as Dean refused to talk about what had happened and Sam glanced at his brother in sympathy. Booth wanted to break the silence, much as Dean normally would, but he felt to blame for Dean's injury as he hadn't noticed when Bones went walkabout. Bones had never felt so helpless in her whole life, if Dean hadn't turned when he did it would have been her that had been injured and probably killed. She had never known how to apologize and didn't know whether Dean would accept it, since he'd told her to stay put.

As soon as the car stopped Dean was out and stalking to his room, the fury he felt was coming off him in waves.

"I suggest you go back to your room," Sam told Booth and Bones as he got out of the car. "He won't calm down until he's patched up and had a drink." He looked at Bones, "Try and keep a low profile, he won't forgive you if this thing gets to kill anyone else."

Bones pouted, "if he wasn't such a control freak maybe it wouldn't have happened."

Booth rolled his eyes, Bones was as much a control freak as anyone and would never listen nor would she admit blame. He bit his tongue against saying anything.

"If you weren't so stubborn maybe you would have realized he knew what he was talking about and stayed out of the way," Sam retaliated and left them in the car park.

Bones looked at Booth and he raised his hands, "don't expect me to back you," he argued. "We checked out the area earlier and he made it clear that it wasn't safe for anyone to wander around unawares. Besides all the victims have been women on their own, which sums up you walking around down there. You better be careful he doesn't decide to use you as bait."

Bones looked indignant, "he wouldn't dare," she declared.

"After your stunt I wouldn't rule anything out," Booth corrected.

Sam closed the door behind him and looked around for his brother. The hissing from the bathroom alerted him to where to look.

Walking up to the open door he watched his brother trying get out of his clothes to clean the wounds. Just then Dean looked up into the mirror and saw his brother watching him, "you told them to get lost?" he asked.

"Not exactly," Sam replied walking into the room and helping his brother remove his jacket and shirts. "I told them to stay away until you'd calmed down."

Dean hissed as the shirts caught on the wounds. Sam threw the shirts away and started cleaning the claw marks on his brother's back carefully trying not to make his brother hurt any more. He closed the wounds with butterfly stitches and covered them before starting on his brother's chest. As he worked he could feel the anger draining from Dean as the adrenaline seeped away. By the time he finished Dean was almost collapsing from the effects of the pain killers that he had taken before Sam had come in.

"How many of those did you take?" Sam asked indicating the packet of pain killers.

"Three," Dean replied taking another gulp of the beer he had taken in with him.

"You're only supposed to take two," Sam sighed, "they're the extra strong ones. No wonder you look like you're ready to fall asleep. You really shouldn't mix them with alcohol."

"Yes mom," Dean replied sarcastically. "Now you can put me to bed and read me a story."

"Dean," Sam whined as he finished the first aid on his brother and went out into their room.

"Sam," Dean reflected, "I just want to shut off for the night before I shoot that stupid woman," he finished as he followed Sam into the room and saw Booth and Bones stood by the table. He glared at Sam, "well done on locking the door little brother."

Bones gawped at the dressing on Dean's chest just above his heart. It was obvious that Booth had tried to stop her walking in and he was now trying to get her to leave.

Dean raised his beer bottle in her direction, "not done enough damage for one night then?" he asked. "Come in here looking to cause more?"

She reeled at the accusation, "I actually came to apologize but I guess you don't want that."

"Lady all I want is to hit the sack and not have to see your face again," he sighed moving towards his bed. "Guess I'll have to settle for just getting the first," he finished ignoring that she had made no attempt to leave and sitting down to take his boots off.

She was astounded that although he was talking to her he was making no allowances for her presence as he got ready for bed. When he got up and turned around to drop his jeans she noticed the dressings on his back and she went over to touch them before Sam or Booth could stop her.

"That looks really bad," she said as she touched one of the dressings gently.

He turned quickly grabbing her arm and got right up to her, "you don't say," he replied sarcastically. "And if I hadn't got there it would have torn out your throat, so cut the bullshit sympathy and get out of here so that I can get some sleep." He released her arm and checked that his knife was under the pillow. Picking his jeans up and folding them he put them on a chair before walking back to the bed.

Bones was still stood where he'd let go of her arm as if frozen by his actions. Sam was letting the scene play out hoping that it would make things easier in the morning. Booth wanted to guide her out and into their room but knew she'd resist.

As Dean got into bed he turned to his brother, "make sure you check the lines when these two have left." He then lay own and turned his back on the people in the room hoping they'd get the message.

Sam indicated that they should leave Dean alone and shepherded Booth and Bones out of the room. Once outside he turned to Bones, "you happy now?"

She glared at him defiantly, "I only wanted to apologize."

Sam threw his hands up in amazement and turned to Booth, "how do you work with her? She has no idea how to work with people."

Booth smirked, "it's a challenge but we get through."

Bones glared at Booth. "I can work with people," she assured them.

"You can work with scientists who understand you and make allowances," Booth replied. "You talk in a language most people don't understand and you make them feel threatened. Then when someone tries to stand up to you, you ignore what they're saying thinking you know better and I'm not just talking about Dean."

"Look can we call it a night," Sam pleaded. "Maybe tomorrow we can try and work together but this isn't helping," he finished heading back into his room and leaving Bones glaring at Booth.

When Dean woke in the morning it was to rays of sunlight casting shadows through the thin curtains. He wondered what time it was and winced as he turned to check the time. Looking at the other bed he noticed Sam was already up and a quick glance at his watch confirmed to was 8am.

It took a while for him to realize that Sam wasn't even in the room and by that time Sam was returning with coffee and muffins.

"How you feeling this morning Sunshine?" Sam asked as he deposited his purchases on the table.

Dean winced as he sat up and realized Sam had noticed. "Sore and you," he replied swinging his legs out of bed and putting his hand up for a coffee.

Sam duly handed him a coffee and sat on his own bed to drink his, "ok, so what's happening today?"

"Sure you don't want to wait for the bitch to tell us how to do our job," Dean groaned.

"Hey we're the team not them, we work together," Sam replied wondering what had got into his brother.

"Didn't seem that way when you waited to talk to them last night and then sneaked off with them as soon as I was in bed," Dean groused, he was stiff and still annoyed.

Sam smiled, "I was trying to get them to realize that we're a team and they should back off from making matters worse." He shrugged, "but it seems Dr Brennan won't do as she's told by anyone."

"Yeah I gathered that," Dean sighed. "Just means we'll have to dump them tonight and get the job done without them poking around."

"You don't seem to have a problem with Agent Booth." Sam observed.

"He seems to know the score and is willing to let us take the lead," Dean responded. "I can work with that. Look I'm gonna get a shower then we need to check out those pictures," Dean continued getting up and heading for the bathroom. "Any news from Bobby or Ash?"

"Bobby rang and said he thought it belonged to Clayton Reed," Sam answered, "but he dropped off the grid two years ago. Ellen rang and confirmed it was Clayton Reed and that he'd been in the area when he went missing. Ash checked it out and thinks he might be in the local psychiatric hospital, a man matching his description was taken there about the time of his disappearance."

Dean popped his head back round the bathroom door, "guess he's our first port of call. Although it would probably be better if you go with Agent Booth."

"What and risk you killing Dr Brennan while we're gone," Sam called out incredulously with a grin.

Dean had heard but thought he'd wait until Sam was redressing the wounds before answering.

Ten minutes later Dean emerged from the bathroom towel round his hips, hair dripping and first aid kit in hand. "I would suggest she went with you but she's liable to get you both certified. Although I wouldn't worry too much about her it'd be a real bitch having to get you out," he grinned as he took a seat on his bed and handed the kit to his brother.

Sam took the kit and started taking the wet dressings off. "So you think she'll be safe with you?" he asked.

"Probably not but while you're at the hospital I want to visit the delectable Susan Reynolds," the older brother replied. "Susan is the last surviving victim."

"But won't she be expecting you to be with someone else?" Sam frowned as he cleaned the wounds again.

"But she's expecting me with Agent Booth who got called away on urgent business," he smirked, hissing as the antiseptic soaked into the healing wound on his back.

"So where am I going?" Agent Booth asked as he and Bones walked in.

"You know it's polite to knock," Dean groused glancing towards the door and wincing as Sam pulled off another dressing.

"Maybe," Bones agreed, "but then I wouldn't get a chance to look at those marks on your back."

Dean growled but Sam stopped him saying anything by dabbing antiseptic on another wound and making his brother wince. "Why would we let you near them?" Sam inquired gruffly.

Bones sighed, "They're evidence of what this creature can do. We need to take photos and measurements. It should have been done last night but someone was throwing a tantrum," she replied pointedly at Dean.

Sam could feel all of Dean's muscles tense. "You'd have had the creature to examine last night if you'd stayed put," Dean growled, "and I wouldn't have more scars to catalogue my life by."

Bones moved to see the wounds and Dean tensed further. She brought out her notebook, a measure and phone. Placing the measure next to the wounds on his back she got Sam to hold it as she took some photos.

As she moved around to do the same with the chest wound she caught his eye, "I'm sorry about yesterday but these will help." She got him to hold the measure as she took some more photos.

"Lady these may help you but they won't do anything to catch this thing and stop it killing anyone else," Dean sneered. "And it won't use the same patch tonight, so we've," he indicated Sam and himself, "got a lot of work to do to guess where it'll be tonight."

"I could help," she offered.

"You've been about as much help as a hooker in a convent so far, so excuse me for not considering your offer," he replied. "Jesus Sam," he exclaimed as Sam deliberately poured too much antiseptic on the chest wound before redressing it.

While Sam and Booth went to the hospital Dean went to visit Susan Reynolds, this left Bones with some time to herself.

First she checked in with her team at the Jeffersonian and sent them the pictures of the wounds in Dean's back and chest.

Angela was horrified and asked Bones to be careful as she thought she was the creature's type. When Bones said it had been her fault Angela had told her to be more careful and start taking orders, although being Angela she said it in a way that Bones would accept.

When she had finished doing everything and was still waiting she went to the desk and asked if they could let her into Dean and Sam's room. She claimed to have left her phone in there and needed it.

The desk clerk believed her and let her in. Sam had left the laptop on the desk and she decided to see if she could find out anything else about the case or the brothers. She found enough to know that neither of them were stupid or fantasizing. It made her think about how quickly she had judged them both based on her own perceptions of the world and what existed.

She left the room as she found it and went to have some coffee at the diner. She needed to work through what she had read and see if she could convince them that she would do as she was told.

It had taken a lot of persuasion on her part but eventually Dean had capitulated and agreed that Booth and her could set up an observation point on one of the buildings again. Dean had only agreed when she accepted that if she got in the way of the shot he would probably shoot her.

The news from Clayton Reed had helped. He had been in an alley where someone had been killed when he was arrested they thought he was the psycho who had done it. He'd actually been attempting to kill the werewolf when the police arrived and taken him down. In the process the werewolf had escaped but there was no way he could get the police to believe him. Clayton identified one of the suspect's photos as the werewolf.

Susan Reynolds had identified one of the photos that Dean had shown her. As soon as he had arrived back at the motel he and Sam had compared notes it was the same photo. They set about finding where this person lived and what he did for a living. As they catalogued his movements Dean established a pattern for the killings and decided where they would check tonight.

Booth and Bones were going to watch the guy's apartment and check when he left. They would follow him to his place of work and then wait on the roof until he emerged. Dean had insisted that they then ring him and confirm which way he was going they were then to stay at a safe distance and just observe.

Sam and Dean were going to wait in the alley that Dean expected the guy use tonight. He just hoped he'd guessed right because there were so many routes he could take but he thought the guy would notice a tail.

"Look you want evidence and I don't want you down there," Dean started as they made their preparations for the night, Booth nodded. "Is there any way you can rig us up with cameras so you can see what we're seeing?" he knew there was but didn't know whether the FBI would provide the equipment for them. "It's just once you shoot one of these things they revert back to human on death, so unless you get there before it's dead it'll look human."

Booth grinned, "And that didn't bother you last night?"

"Last night I was more concerned with getting rid of the thing before it killed anyone else," Dean admitted. "Tonight I'm trying to make sure you get what you want as well."

"We have night vision goggles with remote cameras," Booth suggested.

"Nah they restrict vision and are heavy," Dean replied. "It's got to be light, like an ordinary pair of glasses so it sees what we see."

"And you want it tonight Dean?" Sam asked, surprised at his brother. "We've got two hours before we head out."

Booth was already on his phone to a friend as Sam complained. "They'll be here in an hour," he informed them closing his cell. "That should give us enough time to set them up before we head out."

Bones looked at Booth, "why didn't you think of that yesterday?" she accused.

He shrugged, "didn't really know what to expect."

Everything was going to plan with Booth and Bones observing from the roof of a building overlooking the alley that Dean had thought that the latest victim would be found in.

Dean and Sam were concealed on opposite sides of the alley but with a view of each other and both directions down the alley.

Booth had ensured that they had comms. links so that he could tell them when the creature entered the alley.

Booth saw the woman running and turning into the alley being pursued by a strange dog-like creature. He used his comms. unit to tell Dean and continued watching with Bones from the safety of their position.

Dean indicated to Sam which direction it was coming from and what they should do before leaving his hiding place and stepping out to kill the thing. What neither Dean nor Sam were expecting was that the person the werewolf was chasing should be Bones' double.

Dean took a double take before moving to take the shot. His first shot took the creature down but didn't kill it.

"Sammy, get her out of here," he yelled moving closer to the creature. As he got closer he checked with Booth that they were getting a good image. When they confirmed that they were Dean moved in close enough that they could see exactly what the creature looked like before shooting it twice in the heart.

As the creature died it insisted that it didn't know what had happened and wondered where it was. The features of the creature returned to those of its human form as it took its final breath.

Booth and Bones left their place and came down to the alley as soon as Dean confirmed that it was safe. Sam had escorted the victim away trying to convince her that it was a local psycho who had been chasing her and not some monster.

"I'm glad we set up the camera," Booth told Dean as he looked at the corpse.

Dean shrugged, "yeah, I sometimes forget that while we see what they look like by the time the cops arrive it's just another dead human. Although usually we'd salt and burn it so there's no evidence left behind."

"Just an observation," Bones queried, "why did you freeze before shooting it?"

"Think you might want to check the video before we answer that," Sam replied as he rejoined them.

"So did you inform the cops of this because if not they'll be here soon and that is not going in my car?" Dean wanted clarification about what happened about the evidence. All he'd been interested in was finding and taking out the evil son of a bitch, anything else was in Booth's court.

"Yeah I've got our guys coming to collect the corpse and take it straight to the Jeffersonian," Booth confirmed. "The local cops know that there is an FBI operation taking place and they are not to get involved."

Just then a black van turned into the alley and stopped nearby. Two men got out and retrieved a black body bag before approaching. "This it?" one of the men asked.

"Yeah careful how you handle it," Bones informed them.

"And make sure it doesn't bite you," Dean appeared to tease, although he was being serious.

When they had gone Bones turned to Dean, "what was that about biting?"

"We know it's the bite that passes on whatever turns someone, so be careful when you're dealing with it," Dean instructed.

With the body gone they went back to the motel to get some sleep before returning to Washington the next day.

Bones had gone straight to the institute to examine the body and watch the video, while Booth and the Winchesters went to FBI HQ for de-brief. Stanfield had asked for them to be shown straight to his office on their arrival.

"Welcome gentlemen I hear it was a successful operation," he greeted them.

Dean raised his eyebrows and tilted his head but said nothing. He didn't need to, his expression conveyed his thoughts too well.

"It would have been completed earlier but there was a complication," Booth explained.

"A complication by the name of Dr Brennan I'm guessing," the older man smiled. The other men nodded their agreement. "Is that why you look hurt Dean?" he asked.

"Yeah well saving the maiden does mean putting yourself in the firing line," Dean tried to shrug but it caused him to wince.

"What happened?" the older man asked Dean, not expecting anyone else to answer.

"She didn't stay with Booth and end up in the same alley with it right behind her," Dean replied. "We turned to shoot and had to get her out of the way first. It meant it got away that night."

"I suppose you told her to keep out of the way," Stanfield confirmed.

"Of course, don't want amateurs getting in the way," Dean replied.

"Ok, but you solved it and used some of our equipment. How did that go? Did our help make it easier?"

Dean knew what he was asking but it wasn't what he was saying. "Yeah we can do the job better with your help and having the resources of the Jeffersonian and your equipment made things easier. But having to work with two other bodies on the ground made things more complicated," he answered. Turning to Booth, "no offense but we work without a lookout normally."

Booth smirked, "none taken it was fun watching but I'd rather be doing my own cases."

"Glad to hear it," Stanfield agreed with him. Turning to Dean, "I know you and Sam don't write reports on your cases in our format but we do need reports to close cases. I'd like you to write something up with Agent Booth about this case."

"I'm sure Sam will enjoy writing reports and doing geeky stuff," Dean teased and got elbowed by his brother.

"Was this worse than you were expecting?" Stanfield asked. "Or do you think you could endure helping us out on some more cases?"

Dean looked to Sam to answer. "If we can work out the paperwork and get back to actually working on our own," Sam started looking towards Dean for confirmation, "then we could be persuaded to take on some more."

"So long as it's remote," Dean added. "Sam's got the computer, you email us what you want us to look into and we email you any requests and our results."

Booth was impressed they seemed to have thought about how this could work to their advantage. He smiled, "I suppose you'll still want access to Bones and her team."

Dean shrugged, "it was useful for the artist impressions but the evidence and that side is all you not us."

Sam turned to his brother, "but it was interesting to see what they could do."

"Geek," Dean smirked.

"So what do you want in return," Stanfield asked, "I don't suppose you'll do it out of the goodness of your heart."

"You offered us some identities and credit cards last time we were here," Dean wanted confirmation, "and to drop all charges relating to our previous cases."

"Yes and protect some of your friends," Stanfield confirmed. "The credit cards will have $4000 per month to spend in total; anything else will need clearing with this office."

"What about that cool comms. and remote camera kit?" Dean grinned.

"If you're chasing something that we need to see to believe you'll get access," Stanfield agreed, "but only for those cases."

"That's cool," Dean smirked.

"So you'll work with us?" Booth asked hopefully.

Dean looked at Sam and they silently agreed, "Yeah we'll work with you but we've got our own cases too. So we decided which cases and when."

After finalizing agreements to what they would work on and how they would get evidence and reports filed Dean and Sam were ready to hit the road with a new case.

"Look before you go why don't you drop in on Bones, see if she's found anything on that body yet?" Booth suggested.

Dean looked at Sam and shrugged, indicating it was his call. "It's ok we're not good on the whole goodbye thing," Sam replied. "Maybe next time we're in the area we'll call in."

"And when might that be?" Booth grinned knowing they wouldn't be back unless it was a case.

"You know… sometime," Dean replied as they got into the Impala and drove away.

Some miles down the road Dean turned to Sam, "You know it doesn't feel any different."

Sam frowned at him, "What doesn't feel any different?"

"A couple of weeks ago I was wanted by the FBI and we were trying to do our job," Dean explained. "Now I'm not wanted by the FBI but working for them doing our job. I just thought it would feel different but it doesn't."

"So you're still worried the credit card will bounce and someone will spot that the cards are fake?" Sam queried.

"Never worried about it before… it was just a hazard of the job," Dean replied smugly.

**The End**


End file.
